We propose a notion of a proper Ehresmann semigroup based on a three-coordinate description of its generating elements governed by certain labelled directed graphs with additional structure. The generating elements are determined by their domain projection, range projection and σ-class, where σ denotes the minimum congruence that identifies all projections. We prove a structure result on proper Ehresmann semigroups and show that every Ehresmann semigroup has a proper cover. Our covering monoid turns out to be isomorphic to that from the work by Branco, Gomes and Gould and provides a new view of the latter. Proper Ehresmann semigroups all of whose elements admit a three-coordinate description are characterized in terms of partial multiactions of monoids on semilattices. As a consequence, we recover the two-coordinate structure result on proper restriction semigroups.

We investigate tameness of Toeplitz shifts. By introducing the notion of extended Bratteli–Vershik diagrams, we show that such shifts with finite Toeplitz rank are tame if and only if there are at most countably many orbits of singular fibres over the maximal equicontinuous factor. The ideas are illustrated using the class of substitution shifts. A body of elaborate examples shows that the assumptions of our results cannot be relaxed.

This paper studies the structure and preservational properties of lower bounded HNN extensions of inverse semigroups, as introduced by Jajcayová. We show that if $S^* = [ S;\; U_1,U_2;\; \phi ]$ is a lower bounded HNN extension then the maximal subgroups of $S^*$ may be described using Bass-Serre theory, as the fundamental groups of certain graphs of groups defined from the $\mathcal{D}$-classes of $S$, $U_1$ and $U_2$. We then obtain a number of results concerning when inverse semigroup properties are preserved under the HNN extension construction. The properties considered are completely semisimpleness, having finite $\mathcal{R}$-classes, residual finiteness, being $E$-unitary, and $0$-$E$-unitary. Examples are given, such as an HNN extension of a polycylic inverse monoid.

We call a semigroup right perfect if every object in the category of unitary right acts over that semigroup has a projective cover. In this paper, we generalize results about right perfect monoids to the case of semigroups. In our main theorem, we will give nine conditions equivalent to right perfectness of a factorizable semigroup. We also prove that right perfectness is a Morita invariant for factorizable semigroups.

In a 1968 issue of the Proceedings, P. M. Cohn famously claimed that a commutative domain is atomic if and only if it satisfies the ascending chain condition on principal ideals (ACCP). Some years later, a counterexample was however provided by A. Grams, who showed that every commutative domain with the ACCP is atomic, but not vice versa. This has led to the problem of finding a sensible (ideal-theoretic) characterisation of atomicity.

The question (explicitly stated on p. 3 of A. Geroldinger and F. Halter–Koch’s 2006 monograph on factorisation) is still open. We settle it here by using the language of monoids and preorders.

Let $C_c^{*}(\mathbb{N}^{2})$ be the universal $C^{*}$-algebra generated by a semigroup of isometries $\{v_{(m,n)}\,:\, m,n \in \mathbb{N}\}$ whose range projections commute. We analyse the structure of KMS states on $C_{c}^{*}(\mathbb{N}^2)$ for the time evolution determined by a homomorphism $c\,:\,\mathbb{Z}^{2} \to \mathbb{R}$. In contrast to the reduced version $C_{red}^{*}(\mathbb{N}^{2})$, we show that the set of KMS states on $C_{c}^{*}(\mathbb{N}^{2})$ has a rich structure. In particular, we exhibit uncountably many extremal KMS states of type I, II and III.

This article studies the properties of word-hyperbolic semigroups and monoids, that is, those having context-free multiplication tables with respect to a regular combing, as defined by Duncan and Gilman [‘Word hyperbolic semigroups’, Math. Proc. Cambridge Philos. Soc. 136(3) (2004), 513–524]. In particular, the preservation of word-hyperbolicity under taking free products is considered. Under mild conditions on the semigroups involved, satisfied, for example, by monoids or regular semigroups, we prove that the semigroup free product of two word-hyperbolic semigroups is again word-hyperbolic. Analogously, with a mild condition on the uniqueness of representation for the identity element, satisfied, for example, by groups, we prove that the monoid free product of two word-hyperbolic monoids is word-hyperbolic. The methods are language-theoretically general, and apply equally well to semigroups, monoids or groups with a $\mathbf {C}$-multiplication table, where $\mathbf {C}$ is any reversal-closed super-$\operatorname {\mathrm {AFL}}$. In particular, we deduce that the free product of two groups with $\mathbf {ET0L}$ with respect to indexed multiplication tables again has an $\mathbf {ET0L}$ with respect to an indexed multiplication table.

A natural operation on numerical semigroups is taking a quotient by a positive integer. If $\mathcal {S}$ is a quotient of a numerical semigroup with k generators, we call $\mathcal {S}$ a k-quotient. We give a necessary condition for a given numerical semigroup $\mathcal {S}$ to be a k-quotient and present, for each $k \ge 3$, the first known family of numerical semigroups that cannot be written as a k-quotient. We also examine the probability that a randomly selected numerical semigroup with k generators is a k-quotient.

For every group G, the set $\mathcal {P}(G)$ of its subsets forms a semiring under set-theoretical union $\cup $ and element-wise multiplication $\cdot $, and forms an involution semigroup under $\cdot $ and element-wise inversion ${}^{-1}$. We show that if the group G is finite, non-Dedekind, and solvable, neither the semiring $(\mathcal {P}(G),\cup ,\cdot )$ nor the involution semigroup $(\mathcal {P}(G),\cdot ,{}^{-1})$ admits a finite identity basis. We also solve the finite basis problem for the semiring of Hall relations over any finite set.

A semigroup S is said to be right pseudo-finite if the universal right congruence can be generated by a finite set $U\subseteq S\times S$, and there is a bound on the length of derivations for an arbitrary pair $(s,t)\in S\times S$ as a consequence of those in U. This article explores the existence and nature of a minimal ideal in a right pseudo-finite semigroup. Continuing the theme started in an earlier work by Dandan et al., we show that in several natural classes of monoids, right pseudo-finiteness implies the existence of a completely simple minimal ideal. This is the case for orthodox monoids, completely regular monoids, and right reversible monoids, which include all commutative monoids. We also show that certain other conditions imply the existence of a minimal ideal, which need not be completely simple; notably, this is the case for semigroups in which one of the Green’s preorders ${\leq _{\mathcal {L}}}$ or ${\leq _{\mathcal {J}}}$ is left compatible with multiplication. Finally, we establish a number of examples of pseudo-finite monoids without a minimal ideal. We develop an explicit construction that yields such examples with additional desired properties, for instance, regularity or ${\mathcal {J}}$-triviality.

For a given inverse semigroup action on a topological space, one can associate an étale groupoid. We prove that there exists a correspondence between the certain subsemigroups and the open wide subgroupoids in case that the action is strongly tight. Combining with the recent result of Brown et al., we obtain a correspondence between the certain subsemigroups of an inverse semigroup and the Cartan intermediate subalgebras of a groupoid C*-algebra.

We examine a semigroup analogue of the Kumjian–Renault representation of C*-algebras with Cartan subalgebras on twisted groupoids. Specifically, we represent semigroups with distinguished normal subsemigroups as ‘slice-sections’ of groupoid bundles.

The ring $\mathbb Z_{d}$ of d-adic integers has a natural interpretation as the boundary of a rooted d-ary tree $T_{d}$ . Endomorphisms of this tree (that is, solenoidal maps) are in one-to-one correspondence with 1-Lipschitz mappings from $\mathbb Z_{d}$ to itself. In the case when $d=p$ is prime, Anashin [‘Automata finiteness criterion in terms of van der Put series of automata functions’,p-Adic Numbers Ultrametric Anal. Appl. 4(2) (2012), 151–160] showed that $f\in \mathrm {Lip}^{1}(\mathbb Z_{p})$ is defined by a finite Mealy automaton if and only if the reduced coefficients of its van der Put series constitute a p-automatic sequence over a finite subset of $\mathbb Z_{p}\cap \mathbb Q$ . We generalize this result to arbitrary integers $d\geq 2$ and describe the explicit connection between the Moore automaton producing such a sequence and the Mealy automaton inducing the corresponding endomorphism of a rooted tree. We also produce two algorithms converting one automaton to the other and vice versa. As a demonstration, we apply our algorithms to the Thue–Morse sequence and to one of the generators of the lamplighter group acting on the binary rooted tree.

We show that, given a compact minimal system $(X,g)$ and an element h of the topological full group $\tau [g]$ of g, the infinite orbits of h admit a locally constant orientation with respect to the orbits of g. We use this to obtain a clopen partition of $(X,G)$ into minimal and periodic parts, where G is any virtually polycyclic subgroup of $\tau [g]$ . We also use the orientation of orbits to give a refinement of the index map and to describe the role in $\tau [g]$ of the submonoid generated by the induced transformations of g. Finally, we consider the problem, given a homeomorphism h of the Cantor space X, of determining whether or not there exists a minimal homeomorphism g of X such that $h \in \tau [g]$ .

Twisted étale groupoid algebras have recently been studied in the algebraic setting by several authors in connection with an abstract theory of Cartan pairs of rings. In this paper we show that extensions of ample groupoids correspond in a precise manner to extensions of Boolean inverse semigroups. In particular, discrete twists over ample groupoids correspond to certain abelian extensions of Boolean inverse semigroups, and we show that they are classified by Lausch’s second cohomology group of an inverse semigroup. The cohomology group structure corresponds to the Baer sum operation on twists.

We also define a novel notion of inverse semigroup crossed product, generalizing skew inverse semigroup rings, and prove that twisted Steinberg algebras of Hausdorff ample groupoids are instances of inverse semigroup crossed products. The cocycle defining the crossed product is the same cocycle that classifies the twist in Lausch cohomology.

We call a semigroup $S$weakly right noetherian if every right ideal of $S$ is finitely generated; equivalently, $S$ satisfies the ascending chain condition on right ideals. We provide an equivalent formulation of the property of being weakly right noetherian in terms of principal right ideals, and we also characterize weakly right noetherian monoids in terms of their acts. We investigate the behaviour of the property of being weakly right noetherian under quotients, subsemigroups and various semigroup-theoretic constructions. In particular, we find necessary and sufficient conditions for the direct product of two semigroups to be weakly right noetherian. We characterize weakly right noetherian regular semigroups in terms of their idempotents. We also find necessary and sufficient conditions for a strong semilattice of completely simple semigroups to be weakly right noetherian. Finally, we prove that a commutative semigroup $S$ with finitely many archimedean components is weakly (right) noetherian if and only if $S/\mathcal {H}$ is finitely generated.

Taking residual finiteness as a starting point, we consider three related finiteness properties: weak subsemigroup separability, strong subsemigroup separability and complete separability. We investigate whether each of these properties is inherited by Schützenberger groups. The main result of this paper states that for a finitely generated commutative semigroup S, these three separability conditions coincide and are equivalent to every $\mathcal {H}$ -class of S being finite. We also provide examples to show that these properties in general differ for commutative semigroups and finitely generated semigroups. For a semigroup with finitely many $\mathcal {H}$ -classes, we investigate whether it has one of these properties if and only if all its Schützenberger groups have the property.

For every pseudovariety $\mathbf {V}$ of finite monoids, let $\mathbf {LV}$ denote the pseudovariety of all finite semigroups all of whose local submonoids belong to $\mathbf {V}$ . In this paper, it is shown that, for every nontrivial semidirectly closed pseudovariety $\mathbf {V}$ of finite monoids, the pseudovariety $\mathbf {LV}$ of finite semigroups is also semidirectly closed if, and only if, the given pseudovariety $\mathbf {V}$ is local in the sense of Tilson. This finding resolves a long-standing open problem posed in the second volume of the classic monograph by Eilenberg.