Semigroups whose Proper Right Congruences Form a Tree

Let S be a semigroup whose set of proper right congruences form a tree. The main theorem is a characterization of those semigroups having this property. In this characterization we draw on the results of Schein and Tamura for commutative semigroups and Kozhukhov for left chain semigroups and Hitzel for nilpotent semigroups. The interested reader should also see the work of Nagy on -semigroups.