The tight groupoid of an inverse semigroup (Q284675)

Let \(S\) be an inverse semigroup with zero \(0\), \(s^{\ast}\) the inverse to \(s\), \(E (S)=\{e\in S : e^2=e\}\), \(X\) be a locally compact Hausdorff topological space and \(\alpha: S \mapsto \mathcal{I}(X)\) be an action of \(S\) on \(X\), \(D_{s^{\ast}s}^{\alpha}\), \(D_{ss^{\ast}}^{\alpha}\) be, correspondingly, the domain and the range of \(\alpha_s\). From every such action \(\alpha\), an étale groupoid of germs \(\mathcal{G}_{\alpha}(S)\) can be constructed. Now, consider the action \(\beta: S \to \mathcal{I}(\widehat{E_0})\) of the semigroup \(S\) on the space of characters on \(E\) and restrict it to the tight part \(\widehat{E_{\mathrm{tight}}}\) of the spectrum of its idempotent semilattice, i.e., to the action \(\theta: S \to \mathcal{I}(\widehat{E_{\mathrm{tight}}})\). Let \(\mathcal{G}_{\mathrm{tight}} (S)\) be the tight groupoid associated with \(\theta\), i.e., the groupoid of germs associated to the action \(\theta\) [the first author, Bull. Braz. Math. Soc. (N.S.) 39, No. 2, 191--313 (2008; Zbl 1173.46035)]. In this article, the authors investigate algebraic conditions under which \(\mathcal{G}_{\mathrm{tight}} (S)\) has the properties of being: 1) Hausdorff, 2) essentially principal, 3) minimal and 4) contracting. Further, a list of the main results follows. 1) \(\mathcal{G}_{\mathrm{tight}} (S)\) is Hausdorff if and only if for every \(s\in S\), the ideal \(\mathcal{J}_s = \{e\in E: e\leq s\}\) admits a finite cover (Theorem 3.16). As a corollary, \(\mathcal{G}_{\mathrm{tight}} (S)\) is Hausdorff for \(E^{\ast}\)-unitary inverse semigroups \(S\). 2) The problem of defining conditions under which \(\mathcal{G}_{\mathrm{tight}} (S)\) is essentially principal, is reduced to the question when \(\theta\) is a topologically free action. In case every tight filter is an ultrafilter, \(\mathcal{G}_{\mathrm{tight}} (S)\) is essentially principal if and only if for every \(s\in S\), and for every \(e\in E\) that is weakly fixed under \(s\) (i.e., \(sfs^{\ast}f\neq 0\) for every nonzero idempotent \(f \leq e\)), there exists a finite cover for \(e\) consisting of fixed idempotents (Theorem 4.10). Also, \(\mathcal{G}_{\mathrm{tight}} (S)\) is essentially principal if and only for every \(s\in S\) and for every \(\xi \in D_{s^{\ast}s}^{\theta}\) that is an interior fixed point for \(s\), as well as an ultrafilter, one has that \(\xi\) is trivially fixed by \(s\) (Theorem 4.10). 3) An action \(\alpha\) is irreducible if there are no open invariant subsets of \(X\) other then empty set and \(X\) itself. \(\mathcal{G}_{\mathrm{tight}} (S)\) being minimal is equivalent to the irreducibility of action \(\theta\) of \(S\) on \(\widehat{E_{\mathrm{tight}}}\) (Theorem 5.5). Another equivalent condition is: \(\mathcal{G}_{\mathrm{tight}} (S)\) is minimal if and only if for every nonzero \(e,f\in E\), there are \(s_1, s_2, \ldots, s_n\in S\), such that \(\{s_ifs_i^{\ast}\}_{1\leq i\leq n}\) is an outer cover for \(e\) (Theorem 5.5). 4) An inverse semigroup \(S\) is locally contracting if, for every nonzero idempotent \(e\in E\), there exists an \(s\in S\) and a finite subset of idempotents \(F= \{f_0, f_1, \ldots, f_n\} \subseteq E\), with \(n\geq 0\), such that, for all \(i=0, \ldots, n\), one has \(0\neq f_i \leq es^{\ast}s\), \(F\) is an outer cover for \(sf_is^{\ast}\), and \(f_0 s f_i =0\). For every locally contracting inverse semigroup \(S\), \(\mathcal{G}_{\mathrm{tight}} (S)\) is a locally contracting groupoid (Corollary 6.6).