Semigroups of rectangular matrices under a sandwich operation (Q1644730)

Let \(\mathcal{M}_{mn}=\mathcal{M}_{mn}(\mathbb{F})\) denote the set of all \(m\times n\) matrices over a field \(\mathbb{F},\) and fix some \(n\times m\) matrix \(A\in \mathcal{M}_{nm}.\) An associative operation \(\star\) may be defined on \(\mathcal{M}_{mn}\) by \(X\star Y=XAY\) for all \(X,Y\in\mathcal{M}_{mn},\) and the resulting \textit{sandwich semigroup} is denoted \(\mathcal{M}^A_{mn}=M^A_{mn}(\mathbb{F}).\) These semigroups are closely related to Munn rings, which are fundamental tools in the representation theory of finite semigroups. The authors study \(\mathcal{M}^A_{mn}\) as well as its subsemigroups Reg(\(\mathcal{M}^A_{mn}\)) and \(\mathcal{E}^A_mn\) (consisting of all regular elements and products of idempotents, respectively), and the ideals of Reg(\(\mathcal{M}^A_{mn}\)). They develop a general theory of sandwich semigroups in partial semigroups, extending certain important semigroup theoretic notions to the more general context. They characterise the regular elements, determine Green's relations and preorders, calculate the minimal number of matrices (or idempotent matrices, if applicable) required to generate each semigroup they consider, and classify the isomorphisms between finite sandwich semigroups \(\mathcal{M}^A_{mn}(\mathbb{F}_1)\) and \(M^B_{kl}(\mathbb{F}_2).\) They develop a general theory of sandwich semigroups in a suitably defined class of \textit{partial semigroups} related to Ehresmann-style ``arrows only'' categories; this framework will be useful in studies of sandwich semigroups in other categories. These results have applications to the \textit{variants} \(\mathcal{M}^A_n\) of the full linear monoid \(\mathcal{M}_n\) (in the case \(m=n\)), and to certain semigroups of linear transformations of restricted range or kernel (in the case that rank(\(A\)) is equal to one of \(m, n\)).