Embedding topological semigroups in topological groups

In 6] Rothman investigated the problem of embedding a topological semigroup in a topological group. He defined a concept calledProperty F and showed that Property F is a necessary and sufficient condition for embedding a commutative, cancellative topological semigroup in its group of quotients as an open subset. This paper announces a generalization of Rothman’s result by definingProperty E and stating that a completely regular topological semigroup S can be embedded in a topological group by a topological isomorphism if and only if S can be embedded (algebraically) in a group and S has Property E. Property E is defined by first constructing a free topological semigroup (Theorem 1.1). This construction resembles the one in 4] for a free topological group. Full details, examples, and other embedding results will appear elsewhere. Some of the results in this paper were contained in the author’s doctoral dissertation written at Rutgers University under Professor Louis F. McAuley.