Sandwich semigroups in locally small categories II: Transformations

TL;DR

This paper thoroughly analyzes the structure, regularity, and generating properties of sandwich semigroups formed by partial transformations between sets, extending previous results and providing explicit descriptions and calculations.

Contribution

It offers a comprehensive description of the algebraic and combinatorial properties of sandwich semigroups of partial transformations, including regularity, Green's relations, and rank calculations.

Findings

Reg$( ext{Sandwich semigroup})$ is a pullback product of regular subsemigroups.

Calculated the rank and idempotent rank of the semigroups.

Extended analysis to totally defined and injective partial functions.

Abstract

Fix sets $X$ and $Y$, and write $\mathcal{PT}_{XY}$ for the set of all partial functions $X\to Y$. Fix a partial function $a:Y\to X$, and define the operation $\star_a$ on $\mathcal{PT}_{XY}$ by $f\star_ag=fag$ for $f,g\in\mathcal{PT}_{XY}$. The sandwich semigroup $(\mathcal{PT}_{XY},\star_a)$ is denoted $\mathcal{PT}_{XY}^a$. We apply general results from Part I to thoroughly describe the structural and combinatorial properties of $\mathcal{PT}_{XY}^a$, as well as its regular and idempotent-generated subsemigroups, Reg$(\mathcal{PT}_{XY}^a)$ and $\mathbb E(\mathcal{PT}_{XY}^a)$. After describing regularity, stability and Green's relations and preorders, we exhibit Reg$(\mathcal{PT}_{XY}^a)$ as a pullback product of certain regular subsemigroups of the (non-sandwich) partial transformation semigroups $\mathcal{PT}_X$ and $\mathcal{PT}_Y$, and as a kind of "inflation" of $\mathcal{PT}_A$, where $A$ is the image of the sandwich element $a$. We also calculate the rank (minimal size of a generating set) and, where appropriate, the idempotent rank (minimal size of an idempotent generating set) of $\mathcal{PT}_{XY}^a$, Reg$(\mathcal{PT}_{XY}^a)$ and $\mathbb E(\mathcal{PT}_{XY}^a)$. The same program is also carried out for sandwich semigroups of totally defined functions and for injective partial functions. Several corollaries are obtained for various (non-sandwich) semigroups of (partial) transformations with restricted image, domain and/or kernel.