Morita equivalence of semigroups revisited: firm semigroups (Q1645000)

A right \(S\)-act \(A_S\) is firm if the mapping \(A\otimes S\rightarrow A, a\otimes s \mapsto as\) is bijective. A semigroup \(S\) is called firm if it is firm as a right \(S\)-act. In this paper, Morita theory for firm semigroups is developed. It is shown that equivalence functors between categories of firm acts over two firm semigroups have to be tensor multiplication functors, and the categories of firm right acts over two firm semigroups are equivalent if and only if these semigroups are strongly Morita equivalent, which means that they are contained in a unitary Morita context with surjective mappings. The results in the paper are convincing enough to claim that firm semigroups and firm acts are the natural environment to study Morita equivalence of acts.