On disjointness, bands and projections in partially ordered vector spaces

Abstract: Disjointness, bands, and band projections are a classical and essential part of the structure theory of vector lattices. If $X$ is such a lattice, those notions seem - at first glance - intimately related to the lattice operations on $X$. The last fifteen years, though, have seen an extension of all those concepts to a much larger class of ordered vector spaces. In fact if $X$ is an Archimedean ordered vector space with generating cone, or a member of the slightly larger class of pre-Riesz spaces, then the notions of disjointness, bands and band projections can be given proper meaning and give rise to a non-trivial structure theory. The purpose of this note is twofold: (i) We show that, on any pre-Riesz space, the structure of the space of all band projections is remarkably close to what we have in the case of vector lattices. In particular, this space is a Boolean algebra. (ii) We give several criteria for a pre-Riesz space to already be a vector lattice. These criteria are coined in terms of disjointness and closely related concepts, and they mark how lattice-like the order structure of pre-Riesz spaces can get before the theory collapses to the vector lattice case.