Semigroups of rectangular matrices under a sandwich operation

Let \({\mathcal {M}}_{mn}={\mathcal {M}}_{mn}({\mathbb {F}})\) denote the set of all \(m\times n\) matrices over a field \({\mathbb {F}}\), and fix some \(n\times m\) matrix \(A\in {\mathcal {M}}_{nm}\). An associative operation \(\star \) may be defined on \({\mathcal {M}}_{mn}\) by \(X\star Y=XAY\) for all \(X,Y\in {\mathcal {M}}_{mn}\), and the resulting sandwich semigroup is denoted \({\mathcal {M}}_{mn}^A={\mathcal {M}}_{mn}^A({\mathbb {F}})\). These semigroups are closely related to Munn rings, which are fundamental tools in the representation theory of finite semigroups. We study \({\mathcal {M}}_{mn}^A\) as well as its subsemigroups \(\hbox {Reg}({\mathcal {M}}_{mn}^A)\) and \({\mathcal {E}}_{mn}^A\) (consisting of all regular elements and products of idempotents, respectively), and the ideals of \(\hbox {Reg}({\mathcal {M}}_{mn}^A)\). Among other results, we characterise the regular elements; determine Green’s relations and preorders; calculate the minimal number of matrices (or idempotent matrices, if applicable) required to generate each semigroup we consider; and classify the isomorphisms between finite sandwich semigroups \({\mathcal {M}}_{mn}^A({\mathbb {F}}_1)\) and \({\mathcal {M}}_{kl}^B({\mathbb {F}}_2)\). Along the way, we develop a general theory of sandwich semigroups in a suitably defined class of partial semigroups related to Ehresmann-style “arrows only” categories; we hope this framework will be useful in studies of sandwich semigroups in other categories. We note that all our results have applications to the variants \({\mathcal {M}}_n^A\) of the full linear monoid \({\mathcal {M}}_n\) (in the case \(m=n\)), and to certain semigroups of linear transformations of restricted range or kernel (in the case that \(\hbox {rank}(A)\) is equal to one of m, n).