Semigroups generated by a group and an idempotent (Q4382446)

Many important classes of monoids are generated by their group of units, \(G\), together with a single idempotent, \(e\), and in the first two sections the author proves some general results in this setting before moving on to the main case of interest in which \(G\) is a permutation group on a base set of order \(n\) and \(e\) is an idempotent of rank \(n-1\). Any such semigroup \(S\) is regular and conditions under which \(S\) is orthodox, inverse, or a union of its subgroups are characterized along with a study of the idempotent core of \(S\). There are some new combinatorial facts found such as a count of the number of \(\mathcal D\)-classes using the Cauchy-Frobenius formula. The final two sections are concerned with the cases where \(G\) is cyclic and where \(G\) is dihedral, respectively. The corresponding semigroups have `a particularly delicate structure \dots replete with combinatorial gems'. Here there is considerable overlap with the papers `The monoid of orientation preserving mappings on a chain' by \textit{P. Catarino} and the reviewer [Semigroup Forum (to appear)]\ and `Monoids of orientation-preserving transformations of a finite chain and their presentation' by \textit{P. Catarino} [to appear in Proc. St. Andrews Conf. on Semigroups 1997].