Units of integral semigroup rings (Q1913959)

The unit group \(U(\mathbb{Z}[S])\) of the integral semigroup ring \(\mathbb{Z}[S]\) of a finite semigroup \(S\), such that the rational semigroup algebra \(\mathbb{Q}[S]\) is semisimple, is studied. It is shown that the set of so called Bass cyclic units and bicyclic units generates a subgroup of finite index in \(U(\mathbb{Z}[S])\) provided that the algebra \(\mathbb{Q}[S]\) has no simple components of certain forbidden types. This is an extension of a result of the first author and \textit{G. Leal} [Manuscr. Math. 78, No. 3, 303-315 (1993; Zbl 0802.16025)] on integral group rings. The main idea is to consider the contracted semigroup algebras \(\mathbb{Z}_0[T]\) of principal factors \(T\) of \(S\) as orders in the corresponding semisimple algebras \(\mathbb{Q}_0[T]\cong M_n (\mathbb{Q}[G])\), where \(G\) is a maximal subgroup of \(T\) and \(n\geq 1\). The main difficulty is to show that, as in the group ring case, the Bass cyclic units (whose definition is modified by using all elements of \(S\) that lie in a subgroup of \(S\)) exhaust the central units of \(\mathbb{Z}[S]\).