No label defined (Q4026894)

[For the entire collection see Zbl 0745.00034.] Let \(S\) be a finite semigroup, and let \(PT(X)\) be the semigroup of all partial transformations on \(X\). The minimal \(n\) such that \(S\) can be embedded into \(PT(X)\) with \(X\) finite, \(| X | = n\), is called the minimal faithful degree of \(S\); it is denoted by \(\mu(S)\). The problem of calculating \(\mu(S)\) is not solved even for groups. The author presents a sort of a survey of his results concerning \(\mu(S)\). First of all, in his earlier papers the author showed that there exist finite semigroups called exceptional with the property: for any such semigroup \(S\) there exists a homomorphic image \(T\) such that \(\mu(S)< \mu(T)\). The author notes that \(\mu(T)/\mu(S)\) may be arbitrarily high. It may be shown that \(\mu(S \times T) \leq \mu(S) + \mu(T)\) for all finite semigroups \(S\) and \(T\). The author poses the problem: when holds \(\mu(S\times T) = \mu(S) + \mu(T)\). He proves that it is so for \(S\) and \(T\) semilattices, and shows that this is not the case for right (left) zero bands. The paper ends with a general theorem on the structure of semigroup representations by full transformations. This theorem shows that any such representation is a factor-representation (in some reasonable sense) of a direct sum of representations corresponding to cyclic operands (these representations are called rooted). A description of rooted representations is also given.