D-semigroups and constellations (Q2362754)

The result that has come to be known as the Ehresmann-Schein-Nambooripad (ESN) theorem states that the category of inverse semigroups and morphisms is isomorphic to the category of inductive groupoids and inductive functors. Here, the term ``groupoid'' is used in the sense of category theory; an inductive groupoid is equipped with a partial order and certain partial binary operations termed restrictions and co-restrictions. One line of generalization has been through the so-called ``York-school'' classes of semigroups. In [J. Algebra 141, No. 2, 422--462 (1991; Zbl 0747.18007)], \textit{M. V. Lawson} defined inductive categories and their functors in an analogous fashion and showed that the resulting category is isomorphic to the category of restriction semigroups (or weakly E-ample semigroups in earlier terminology) and morphisms. In the case of left restriction semigroups, \textit{V. Gould} and \textit{C. Hollings} [Commun. Algebra 38, No. 1, 261--287 (2010; Zbl 1251.20062)] introduced inductive constellations and their functors to yield another analogue. In the paper under review, the author extends the semigroup realm to cover left Ehresmann semigroups (where the ``distinguished idempotents'' still form a semilattice but the left ample law need not hold) and, indeed, to the still wider class of ``left congruence D-semigroups''. Without going into details, the property that the distinguished idempotents form a semilattice is now relaxed, but the associated generalized Green relation is a left congruence, as in Ehresmann semigroups. Moreover, the general theorem not only specializes to left Ehresmann semigroups, but also to certain ordered left congruence D-semigroups. The key observation that allows this generalization is that the ordering in an inductive constellation, associated with the compatible natural ordering on a left restriction semigroup, may be expressed in terms of the co-restriction and so a way forward is found even without a compatible natural partial order on the attendant semigroups. The ``co-restriction constellations'' and their associated functors then yield the analogue of the ESN Theorem for the left congruence D-semigroups.