Local structure of algebraic monoids

We describe the local structure of an irreducible algebraic monoid $M$ at an idempotent element $e$. When $e$ is minimal, we show that $M$ is an induced variety over the kernel $MeM$ (a homogeneous space) with fibre the two-sided stabilizer $M_e$ (a connected affine monoid having a zero element and a dense unit group). This yields the irreducibility of stabilizers and centralizers of idempotents when $M$ is normal, and criteria for normality and smoothness of an arbitrary $M$. Also, we show that $M$ is an induced variety over an abelian variety, with fiber a connected affine monoid having a dense unit group.Comment: Final version, minor changes, to appear in Moscow Mathematical Journa

Conjugation in Semigroups

The action of any group on itself by conjugation and the corresponding conjugacy relation play an important role in group theory. There have been several attempts to extend the notion of conjugacy to semigroups. In this paper, we present a new definition of conjugacy that can be applied to an arbitrary semigroup and it does not reduce to the universal relation in semigroups with a zero. We compare the new notion of conjugacy with existing definitions, characterize the conjugacy in various semigroups of transformations on a set, and count the number of conjugacy classes in these semigroups when the set is infinite.Comment: 41 pages, 14 figure

The development version of the CHEVIE package of GAP3

I describe the current state of the development version of the CHEVIE package, which deals with Coxeter groups, reductive algebraic groups, complex reflection groups, Hecke algebras, braid monoids, etc... Examples are given, showing the code to check some results of Lusztig.Comment: 24 pages. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1003.492

Some results on embeddings of algebras, after de Bruijn and McKenzie

In 1957, N. G. de Bruijn showed that the symmetric group Sym(\Omega) on an infinite set \Omega contains a free subgroup on 2^{card(\Omega)} generators, and proved a more general statement, a sample consequence of which is that for any group A of cardinality \leq card(\Omega), Sym(\Omega) contains a coproduct of 2^{card(\Omega)} copies of A, not only in the variety of all groups, but in any variety of groups to which A belongs. His key lemma is here generalized to an arbitrary variety of algebras \bf{V}, and formulated as a statement about functors Set --> \bf{V}. From this one easily obtains analogs of the results stated above with "group" and Sym(\Omega) replaced by "monoid" and the monoid Self(\Omega) of endomaps of \Omega, by "associative K-algebra" and the K-algebra End_K(V) of endomorphisms of a K-vector-space V with basis \Omega, and by "lattice" and the lattice Equiv(\Omega) of equivalence relations on \Omega. It is also shown, extending another result from de Bruijn's 1957 paper, that each of Sym(\Omega), Self(\Omega) and End_K (V) contains a coproduct of 2^{card(\Omega)} copies of itself. That paper also gave an example of a group of cardinality 2^{card(\Omega)} that was {\em not} embeddable in Sym(\Omega), and R. McKenzie subsequently established a large class of such examples. Those results are shown to be instances of a general property of the lattice of solution sets in Sym(\Omega) of sets of equations with constants in Sym(\Omega). Again, similar results -- this time of varying strengths -- are obtained for Self(\Omega), End_K (V), and Equiv(\Omega), and also for the monoid \Rel of binary relations on \Omega. Many open questions and areas for further investigation are noted.Comment: 37 pages. Copy at http://math.berkeley.edu/~gbergman/papers is likely to be updated more often than arXiv copy Revised version includes answers to some questions left open in first version, references to results of Wehrung answering some other questions, and some additional new result