Semigroups generated by a group and an idempotent

It is well known that the semigroup of all transformations on a finite set X of order n is generated by its group of units, the symmetric group, and any idempotent of rank n ? 1. Similarly, the symmetric inverse semigroup on X is generated by its group of units and any idempotent of rank n ? 1 while the analogous result is true for the semigroup of all n × n matrices over a field.

In this paper we begin a systematic study of the structure of a semigroup S generated by its group G of units and an idempotent ? . The first section consists of preliminaries while the second contains some general results which provide the setting for those which follow.

In the third section we shall investigate the situation where G is a permutation group on a set X of order n and ? is an idempotent of rank n ? 1. In particular, we shall show that any such semigroup S is regular. Furthermore we shall determine when S is an inverse or orthodox semigroup or completely regular semigroup.

The fourth section deals with a special case, that in which G is cyclic. The fifth, and last, deals with the situation where G is dihedral. In both cases, the resulting semigroup has a particularly delicate structure which is of interest in its own right. Both situations are replete with interesting combinatorial gems.

The author was led to the results of this paper by considering the output of a computer program he was writing for generating and analyzing semigroups.