English

Semigroup Actions, Covering Spaces and Schutzenberger Groups

Group Theory 2009-06-01 v1

Abstract

We associate a 2-complex to the following data: a presentation of a semigroup SS and a transitive action of SS on a set VV by partial transformations. The automorphism group of the action acts properly discontinuously on this 2-complex. A sufficient condition is given for the 2-complex to be simply connected. As a consequence we obtain simple topological proofs of results on presentations of Sch\"utzenberger groups. We also give a geometric proof that a finitely generated regular semigroup with finitely many idempotents has polynomial growth if and only if all its maximal subgroups are virtually nilpotent.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0905.4888,
  title  = {Semigroup Actions, Covering Spaces and Schutzenberger Groups},
  author = {Benjamin Steinberg},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0905.4888},
  year   = {2009}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-21T13:07:39.032Z