• Kyungpook Mathematical Journal
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• v.60 no.1
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• pp.1-20
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• 2020

A simple but elegant result of Rival states that every sublattice L of a finite distributive lattice 𝒫 can be constructed from 𝒫 by removing a particular family 𝒥_L of its irreducible intervals. Applying this in the case that 𝒫 is a product of a finite set 𝒞 of chains, we get a one-to-one correspondence L ↦ 𝒟_𝒫(L) between the sublattices of 𝒫 and the preorders spanned by a canonical sublattice 𝒞^⋄ of 𝒫. We then show that L is a tight sublattice of the product of chains 𝒫 if and only if 𝒟_𝒫(L) is asymmetric. This yields a one-to-one correspondence between the tight sublattices of 𝒫 and the posets spanned by its poset J(𝒫) of non-zero join-irreducible elements. With this we recover and extend, among other classical results, the correspondence derived from results of Birkhoff and Dilworth, between the tight embeddings of a finite distributive lattice L into products of chains, and the chain decompositions of its poset J(L) of non-zero join-irreducible elements.