Decomposition schemes for symmetric n-ary bands

We extend the classical (strong) semilattice decomposition scheme of certain classes of semigroups to the class of idempotent symmetric n-ary semigroups (i.e. symmetric n-ary bands) where n \geq 2 is an integer. More precisely, we show that these semigroups are exactly the strong n-ary semilattices of n-ary extensions of Abelian groups whose exponents divide n-1. We then use this main result to obtain necessary and sufficient conditions for a symmetric n-ary band to be reducible to a semigroup.