Coclass theory for nilpotent semigroups via their associated algebras

Coclass theory has been a highly successful approach towards the investigation and classification of finite nilpotent groups. Here we suggest a similar approach for finite nilpotent semigroups. This differs from the group theory setting in that we additionally use certain algebras associated to the considered semigroups. We propose a series of conjectures on our suggested approach. If these become theorems, then this would reduce the classification of nilpotent semigroups of a fixed coclass to a finite calculation. Our conjectures are supported by the classification of nilpotent semigroups of coclass 0 and 1. Computational experiments suggest that the conjectures also hold for the nilpotent semigroups of coclass 2 and 3.Comment: 13 pages, 2 figure

Group extensions with special properties

Given a group G and a G-module A, we show how to determine up to isomorphism the extensions E of A by G so that A embeds as smallest non-trivial term of the derived series or of the lower central series into E.Comment: 13 pages, 2 figure