Extensions and triviality of multipliers on sub-semigroups of the reals (Q2640088)

A multiplier on a topological semigroup is defined to be a mapping \(\sigma\) of \(S\times S\) into \({\mathbb{T}}\) (the unit circle) satisfying the identity \(\sigma (xy,z)\sigma (x,y)=\sigma (x,yz)\sigma (y,z)\) for x,y,z\(\in S\). In 1939 Wigner showed that every Borel measurable multiplier \(\sigma\) on \(({\mathbb{R}},+)\) is given by an identity \(\sigma (x,y)=\phi (x,y)/\phi (x)\phi (y)\) for some Borel measurable function \(\phi\) on \({\mathbb{R}}\). A similar result is proved here for S any connected additive subsemigroup of \({\mathbb{R}}\), improving on a recent result of W. B. Arveson.