# Two questions about axiomatic rank of groups

Let $G$ be a group and $V=Var(G)$ be the variety generated by $G$. Suppose the axiomatic rank of $V$ is $n$. Let $Id(V)$ be the set of all identities of $V$.

1- Can we say that every element of $Id(V)$ is equivalent to some identity of the form $$w(x_1, \ldots, x_n)\approx 1?$$

2- Let $G$ be finite. Can we prove that the axiomatic rank of $V$ is finite without using the fact that $V$ is finitely based?

• What is axiomatic rank? Number of identities or variables? – Benjamin Steinberg Oct 7 '14 at 20:36
• Minimum number of variables. – M. Shahryari Oct 8 '14 at 3:23
• For question 1 what do you mean by equivalent. – Benjamin Steinberg Oct 8 '14 at 3:46
• For question 2 Mark Sapir proved a finite semigroup is finitely based iff it has finite axiomatic rank in your sense. He may have used that all finite groups are finitely based though. So most likely the answer is no. – Benjamin Steinberg Oct 8 '14 at 3:53
• The trivial variety has axiomatic rank 1, right? for $n\geq 2$, the free group $F_m$ embeds in $F_n$, this convince me that there may be a way of expressing an $m$-variable identity in terms of $n$ variables. – M. Shahryari Oct 9 '14 at 6:46