Resolvability vs. almost resolvability

A space X is κ-resolvable (resp. almost κ-resolvable) if it contains κ dense sets that are pairwise disjoint (resp. almost disjoint over the ideal of nowhere dense subsets of X).Answering a problem raised by Juhász, Soukup, and Szentmiklóssy, and improving a consistency result of Comfort and Hu, we prove, in ZFC, that for every infinite cardinal κ there is an almost κ²-resolvable but not ω₁-resolvable space of dispersion character κ.     

A groupoid approach to discrete inverse semigroup algebras

Let K be a commutative ring with unit and S an inverse semigroup. We show that the semigroup algebra KS can be described as a convolution algebra of functions on the universal étale groupoid associated to S by Paterson. This result is a simultaneous generalization of the author's earlier work on finite inverse semigroups and Paterson's theorem for the universal C^∗-algebra. It provides a convenient topological framework for understanding the structure of KS, including the center and when it has a unit. In this theory, the role of Gelfand duality is replaced by Stone duality.Using this approach we construct the finite dimensional irreducible representations of an inverse semigroup over an arbitrary field as induced representations from associated groups, generalizing the case of an inverse semigroup with finitely many idempotents. More generally, we describe the irreducible representations of an inverse semigroup S that can be induced from associated groups as precisely those satisfying a certain “finiteness condition.” This “finiteness condition” is satisfied, for instance, by all representations of an inverse semigroup whose image contains a primitive idempotent.     

Density in Arbitrary Semigroups

We introduce some notions of density in an arbitrary semigroup S which extend the usual notions in countable left amenable semigroups in which density is based on Folner sequences. The new notions are based on nets of finite sets. We show that under certain conditions on the nets and on S these notions relate nicely to some established notions of size in S such as central, syndetic, and piecewise syndetic. And we investigate the conditions under which these notions have other desirable properties such as translation invariance. We obtain new information about the algebraic structure of the Stone-Cech compactification β S of S and derive generalizations of some known Ramsey Theoretic results, including Bergelson's density version of Schur's Theorem.     

Multiplicative structures in additively large sets

Previous research extending over a few decades has established that multiplicatively large sets (in any of several interpretations) must have substantial additive structure. We investigate here the question of how much multiplicative structure can be found in additively large sets. For example, we show that any translate of a set of finite sums from an infinite sequence must contain all of the initial products from another infinite sequence. And, as a corollary of a result of Renling Jin, we show that if A and B have positive upper Banach density, then A+B contains all of the initial products from an infinite sequence. We also show that if a set has a complement which is not additively piecewise syndetic, then any translate of that set is both additively and multiplicatively large in several senses.We investigate whether a subset of N with bounded gaps—a syndetic set—must contain arbitrarily long geometric progressions. We believe that we establish that this is a significant open question.     

Solution of Shapirovskii's question

Boris Shapirovskii posed the following question: “Suppose a continuous mapping from one compact space onto another is given. Suppose that the π-character of any point in the domain is greater than the weight of the target space. Will there be two disjoint closed sets in the domain mapping onto?”. There is a zero-dimensional counterexample (Corollary 12), but the one cardinal up version is true in zero-dimensional case (Corollary 14). Nevertheless, there always will be two disjoint open sets mapping densely (Theorem 7).     

On left regular and intra-regular ordered semigroups

We study the decomposition of left regular ordered semigroups into left regular components and the decomposition of intra-regular ordered semigroups into simple or intra-regular components, adding some additional information to the results considered in [KEHAYOPULU, N.: On left regular ordered semigroups, Math. Japon. 35 (1990), 1057–1060] and [KEHAYOPULU, N.: On intra-regular ordered semigroups, Semigroup Forum 46 (1993), 271–278]. We prove that an ordered semigroup S is left regular if and only if it is a semilattice (or a complete semilattice) of left regular semigroups, equivalently, it is a union of left regular subsemigroups of S. Moreover, S is left regular if and only if it is a union of pairwise disjoint left regular subsemigroups of S. The right analog also holds. The same result is true if we replace the words “left regular” by “intraregular”. Moreover, an ordered semigroup is intra-regular if and only if it is a semilattice (or a complete semilattice) of simple semigroups. On the other hand, if an ordered semigroup is a semilattice (or a complete semilattice) of left simple semigroups, then it is left regular, but the converse statement does not hold in general. Illustrative examples are given.     

A Fubini theorem

Let I₀ be the σ-ideal of subsets of a Polish group generated by Borel sets which have perfectly many pairwise disjoint translates. We prove that a Fubini-type theorem holds between I₀ and the σ-ideals of Haar measure zero sets and of meager sets. We use this result to give a simple proof of a generalization of a theorem of Balcerzak-Ros?anowski-Shelah stating that I₀ on N² strongly violates the countable chain condition.     

Almost maximal spaces

A topological space X is called almost maximal if it is without isolated points and for every x∈X, there are only finitely many ultrafilters on X converging to x. We associate with every countable regular homogeneous almost maximal space X a finite semigroup Ult(X) so that if X and Y are homeomorphic, Ult(X) and Ult(Y) are isomorphic. Semigroups Ult(X) are projectives in the category F of finite semigroups. These are bands decomposing into a certain chain of rectangular components. Under MA, for each projective S in F, there is a countable almost maximal topological group G with Ult(G) isomorphic to S. The existence of a countable almost maximal topological group cannot be established in ZFC. However, there are in ZFC countable regular homogeneous almost maximal spaces X with Ult(X) being a chain of idempotents.     

Semigroup of matrices acting on the max-plus projective space

We investigate the action of semigroups of d×d matrices with entries in the max-plus semifield on the max-plus projective space. Recall that semigroups generated by one element with projectively bounded image are projectively finite and thus contain idempotent elements.In terms of orbits, our main result states that the image of a minimal orbit by an idempotent element of the semigroup with minimal rank has at most d! elements. Moreover, each idempotent element with minimal rank maps at least one orbit onto a singleton.This allows us to deduce the central limit theorem for stochastic recurrent sequences driven by independent random matrices that take countably many values, as soon as the semigroup generated by the values contains an element with projectively bounded image.     

Number theory of matrix semigroups

Unlike factorization theory of commutative semigroups which are well-studied, very little literature exists describing factorization properties in noncommutative semigroups. Perhaps the most ubiquitous noncommutative semigroups are semigroups of square matrices and this article investigates the factorization properties within certain subsemigroups of M_n(Z), the semigroup of n×n matrices with integer entries. Certain important invariants are calculated to give a sense of how unique or non-unique factorization is in each of these semigroups.     

Ω-compact semigroups having congruence extension property

The congruence extension property (CEP) of semigroups has been extensively studied by a number of authors. We call a compact semigroup S an Ω-compact semigroup if the set of all regular elements of S forms an ideal of S. In this note, we characterize the Ω-compact semigroup having (CEP). Our result extends a recent result obtained by X.J. Guo on the congruence extension property of strong Ω-compact semigroups which is a semigroup containing precisely one regular D-class.     

A direct bijection for the Harer-Zagier formula

We give a combinatorial proof of Harer and Zagier's formula for the disjoint cycle distribution of a long cycle multiplied by an involution with no fixed points, in the symmetric group on a set of even cardinality. The main result of this paper is a direct bijection of a set B_p,k, the enumeration of which is equivalent to the Harer-Zagier formula. The elements of B_p,k are of the form (μ,π), where μ is a pairing on {1,…,2p}, π is a partition into k blocks of the same set, and a certain relation holds between μ and π. (The set partitions π that can appear in B_p,k are called “shift-symmetric”, for reasons that are explained in the paper.) The direct bijection for B_p,k identifies it with a set of objects of the form (ρ,t), where ρ is a pairing on a 2(p-k+1)-subset of {1,…,2p} (a “partial pairing”), and t is an ordered tree with k vertices. If we specialize to the extreme case when p=k-1, then ρ is empty, and our bijection reduces to a well-known tree bijection.     

On the exact rate of convergence of frequencies of digits in self-similar sets

We study the exact rate of convergence of frequencies of digits of “normal” points of a self-similar set. Our results have applications to metric number theory. One particular application gives the following surprising result: there is an uncountable family of pairwise disjoint and exceptionally big subsets of ?^d that do not obey the law of the iterated logarithm. More precisely, we prove that there is an uncountable family of pairwise disjoint and exceptionally big sets of points x in ?^d—namely, sets with full Hausdorff dimension—for which the rate of convergence of frequencies of digits in the N-adic expansion of x is either significantly faster or significantly slower than the typical rate of convergence predicted by the law of the iterated logarithm.     

Ordered semigroups which are both right commutative and right cancellative

In this paper we prove that each right commutative, right cancellative ordered semigroup (S,.,??) can be embedded into a right cancellative ordered semigroup (T,??,?) such that (T,??) is left simple and right commutative. As a consequence, an ordered semigroup S which is both right commutative and right cancellative is embedded into an ordered semigroup T which is union of pairwise disjoint abelian groups, indexed by a left zero subsemigroup of?T.     

Sumset phenomenon in countable amenable groups

Jin proved that whenever A and B are sets of positive upper density in Z, A+B is piecewise syndetic. Jin's theorem was subsequently generalized by Jin and Keisler to a certain family of abelian groups, which in particular contains Zd. Answering a question of Jin and Keisler, we show that this result can be extended to countable amenable groups. Moreover we establish that such sumsets (or — depending on the notation — “product sets”) are piecewise Bohr, a result which for G=Z was proved by Bergelson, Furstenberg and Weiss. In the case of an abelian group G, we show that a set is piecewise Bohr if and only if it contains a sumset of two sets of positive upper Banach density.     

Countable connected Hausdorff and Urysohn bunches of arcs in the plane

In this paper, we answer a question by Krasinkiewicz, Reńska and Sobolewski by constructing countable connected Hausdorff and Urysohn spaces as quotient spaces of bunches of arcs in the plane. We also consider a generalization of graphs by allowing vertices to be continua and replacing edges by not necessarily connected sets. We require only that two “vertices” be in the same quasi-component of the “edge” that contains them. We observe that if a graph G cannot be embedded in the plane, then any generalized graph modeled on G is not embeddable in the plane. As a corollary we obtain not planar bunches of arcs with their natural quotients Hausdorff or Urysohn. This answers another question by Krasinkiewicz, Reńska and Sobolewski.     

Crossed modules as homotopy normal maps

In this note we consider crossed modules of groups (N→G, G→Aut(N)), as a homotopy version of the inclusion N⊂G of a normal subgroup. Our main observation is a characterization of the underlying map N→G of a crossed module in terms of a simplicial group structure on the associated bar construction. This approach allows for “natural” generalizations to other monoidal categories, in particular we consider briefly what we call “normal maps” between simplicial groups.     

A new bound for neighbor-connectivity of abelian Cayley graphs

For the notion of neighbor-connectivity in graphs, whenever a vertex is “subverted” the entire closed neighborhood of the vertex is deleted from the graph. The minimum number of vertices whose subversion results in an empty, complete, or disconnected subgraph is called the neighbor-connectivity of the graph. Gunther, Hartnell, and Nowakowski have shown that for any graph, neighbor-connectivity is bounded above by κ. The main result of this paper is a sharpening of the bound for abelian Cayley graphs. In particular, we show by constructing an effective subversion strategy for such graphs, that neighbor-connectivity is bounded above by ⌈δ/2⌉+2. Using a result of Watkins the new bound can be recast in terms of κ to get neighbor-connectivity bounded above by ⌈3κ/4⌉+2 for abelian Cayley graphs.     

Room designs and one-factorizations

The existence of a Room square of order 2n is known to be equivalent to the existence of two orthogonal one-factorizations of the complete graph on 2n vertices, where orthogonal means any two one-factors involved have at most one edge in common. DefineR(n) to be the maximal number of pairwise orthogonal one-factorizations of the complete graph onn vertices.The main results of this paper are bounds on the functionR. If there is a strong starter of order 2n–1 thenR(2n) 3. If 4n–1 is a prime power, it is shown thatR(4n) 2n–1. Also, the recursive construction for Room squares, to obtain, a Room design of sidev(u – w) +w from a Room design of sidev and a Room design of sideu with a subdesign of sidew, is generalized to sets ofk pairwise orthogonal factorizations. It is further shown thatR(2n) 2n–3.     

A method of finding automorphism groups of endomorphism monoids of relational systems

For any set X and any relation ρ on X, let T(X,ρ) be the semigroup of all maps a:X→X that preserve ρ. Let S(X) be the symmetric group on X. If ρ is reflexive, the group of automorphisms of T(X,ρ) is isomorphic to N_S(X)(T(X,ρ)), the normalizer of T(X,ρ) in S(X), that is, the group of permutations on X that preserve T(X,ρ) under conjugation. The elements of N_S(X)(T(X,ρ)) have been described for the class of so-called dense relations ρ. The paper is dedicated to applications of this result.