N-ary Mal'tsev algebras

By analogy with n-Lie algebras, which are a natural generalization of Lie algebras to the case of n-ary multiplication, we define the concept of an n-ary Mal'tsev algerba. It is shown that exceptional algebras of a vector cross product are ternary central simple Mal'tsev algebras, which are not 3-Lie algebras if the characteristic of a ground field is distinct from 2 and 3. The basic result is that every n-ary algebra of the vector cross product is an n-ary central simple Mal'tsev algebra. © 2001 Plenum Publishing Corporation.