Endomorphisms of semigroups of order-preserving partial transformations (Q2334420)

Let \(\Omega_n\) be a finite set with \(n\) elements. The monoid of partial transformations of \(\Omega_n\) is denoted by \(\mathscr{PT}_n\). If \(\Omega_n\) is endowed with an ordering, then an element \(s\in\mathscr{PT}_n\) is said to be order-preserving if \(x\leq y\) implies \(xs\leq ys\) for any \(x,y\) in the domain of \(s\) (where we write a function on the right of its argument). We denote by \(\mathscr{PO}_n\) the submonoid of \(\mathscr{PT}_n\) consisting of all order-preserving partial transformations of \(\Omega_n\), and by \(\mathscr{POI}_n\) the inverse submonoid of all order-preserving partial bijections on \(\Omega_n\). In the paper under review, the authors characterise the endomorphisms of \(\mathscr{POI}_n\) and \(\mathscr{PO}_n\), locating the problem within the more than fifty years of study of semigroups of order-preserving transformations. The main result (Theorem 3.3) is as follows: let \(S\) be either \(\mathscr{POI}_n\) or \(\mathscr{PO}_n\), and let \(\phi:S\rightarrow S\) be any mapping. Then \(\phi\) is an endomorphism of \(S\) if and only if one of the following conditions holds: (a) \(\phi\) is an automorphism; (b) there exist idempotents \(e, f \in S\) with \(e\neq f\) and \(e f = f e = f\) such that \(1\phi = e\) and \((S\setminus\{1\})\phi = \{ f \}\); (c) \(\phi\) has a specific form (given in the paper), determined by a permutation of \(\Omega_n\); (d) \(\phi\) is a constant mapping with idempotent value. In addition, formulae are given for the numbers of endomorphisms of \(\mathscr{POI}_n\) and \(\mathscr{PO}_n\).