A CONDITION ON THE NATURAL ORDER FOR REGULAR SEMIGROUPS (Q4532309)

A regular semigroup \(S\) is defined to be `pure' if no non-idempotent element can be above an idempotent in the natural order of \(S\). This is well known to be a property weaker than being \(E\)-unitary because a regular semigroup is \(E\)-unitary if and only if it is pure and orthodox. The paper initiates the systematic study of such semigroups. The main results present necessary and sufficient conditions on a regular semigroup \(S\) from various classes in order that \(S\) be pure. For example, a completely regular semigroup \(S\) is pure if and only if the only morphisms \(\phi\colon T=\langle e,a\mid e=e^2\leq a\rangle\to S\) are trivial (meaning that \(T\phi\) is either the two element semilattice or the trivial semigroup). A concrete model of the aforementioned completely regular semigroup \(T=\langle e,a\mid e=e^2\leq a\rangle\) is also constructed (in the latter presentation, \(e^2\leq a\) has to be understood as \(e^2=aa^{-1}ea^{-1}ea^{-1}a\)).