Ideals and commutativity in \(\beta\mathbb{N}\) (Q1343820)

This paper continues the author's penetrating work on the algebraic structure of the Stone-Čech compactification \(\beta \mathbb{N}\) of the semigroup \(\mathbb{N}\) of positive integers. Of particular concern here are the semi-principal left ideals \(\mathbb{N}^* + \mu\) of the subsemigroup \(\mathbb{N}^* = \beta \mathbb{N} \setminus \mathbb{N}\), and the partial order \(\leq\) on the set of idempotents defined by \(\alpha \leq \beta\) if \(\alpha + \beta = \beta + \alpha = \alpha\). The key result in the study of semi-principal left ideals is that, for \(\eta \in \mathbb{N}^*\) not in the minimum ideal, there are very many (in a sense too complicated to describe here) elements \(\xi\) of \(\mathbb{N}^*\) for which \(\eta \notin \beta \mathbb{Z} + \xi + \eta\). This enables the author to find, for such an \(\eta\), \(2^{\mathfrak c}\) elements \(\xi\) for which there is no semi-principal left ideal between \(\mathbb{N}^* + \xi + \eta\) and \(\mathbb{N}^* + \eta\). Further, \(\mathbb{N}^* + \eta\) is contained in a chain of semi-principal left ideals which is reverse well-ordered of order-type \(\omega^*_1\). The work on ideals is used to show that each non-minimal idempotent lies immediately above \(2^{\mathfrak c}\) other idempotents. Moreover, \(\beta \mathbb{N}\) contains \(2^{\mathfrak c}\) maximal idempotents and these are dense in the set of all idempotents. Every neighbourhood of every idempotent contains an infinite decreasing chain of idempotents. Finally, the author proves that for any non-minimal idempotent \(\alpha\), the centre of \(\alpha + \beta \mathbb{N} + \alpha\) is \(\alpha + \mathbb{Z} + \alpha\).