Amenability and geometry of semigroups

We study the connection between amenability, Følner conditions and the geometry of finitely generated semigroups. Using results of Klawe, we show that within an extremely broad class of semigroups (encompassing all groups, left cancellative semigroups, finite semigroups, compact topological semigroups, inverse semigroups, regular semigroups, commutative semigroups and semigroups with a left, right or two-sided zero element), left amenability coincides with the strong Følner condition. Within the same class, we show that a finitely generated semigroup of subexponential growth is left amenable if and only if it is left reversible. We show that the (weak) Følner condition is a left quasi-isometry invariant of finitely generated semigroups, and hence that left amenability is a left quasi-isometry invariant of left cancellative semigroups. We also give a new characterisation of the strong Følner condition in terms of the existence of weak Følner sets satisfying a local injectivity condition on the relevant translation action of the semigroup

Inverse monoids of partial graph automorphisms

A partial automorphism of a finite graph is an isomorphism between its vertex induced subgraphs. The set of all partial automorphisms of a given finite graph forms an inverse monoid under composition (of partial maps). We describe the algebraic structure of such inverse monoids by the means of the standard tools of inverse semigroup theory, namely Green's relations and some properties of the natural partial order, and give a characterization of inverse monoids which arise as inverse monoids of partial graph automorphisms. We extend our results to digraphs and edge-colored digraphs as well

Groups and Semigroups Defined by Colorings of Synchronizing Automata

In this paper we combine the algebraic properties of Mealy machines generating self-similar groups and the combinatorial properties of the corresponding deterministic finite automata (DFA). In particular, we relate bounded automata to finitely generated synchronizing automata and characterize finite automata groups in terms of nilpotency of the corresponding DFA. Moreover, we present a decidable sufficient condition to have free semigroups in an automaton group. A series of examples and applications is widely discussed, in particular we show a way to color the De Bruijn automata into Mealy automata whose associated semigroups are free, and we present some structural results related to the associated groups

Ideal bases in constructions defined by directed graphs

The present article continues the investigation of visible ideal bases in constructions defined using directed graphs. Our main theorem establishes that, for every balanced digraph D and each idempotent semiring R with 1, the incidence semiring ID(R) of the digraph D has a convenient visible ideal basis BD(R). It also shows that the elements of BD(R) can always be used to generate two-sided ideals with the largest possible weight among the weights of all two-sided ideals in the incidence semiring