Ehresmann monoids. (Q497718)

A left Ehresmann semigroup \(S\) is a semigroup equipped with an additional unary operation \(^+\) satisfying the following identities: \(x^+x=x\), \((x^+y^+)^+=x^+y^+=y^+x^+\), \((xy)^+=(xy^+)^+\). The set \(E_S=\{s^+\mid s\in S\}\) is called \textit{the semilattice of projections} of \(S\) (under a natural partial order) or \textit{the distinguished semilattice} of \(S\). Right Ehresmann semigroups are defined dually, with the unary operation \(^*\). Ehresmann monoids are monoids defined by the identities for left and right Ehresmann semigroups, together with the identities \((x^*)^+=x^*\), \((x^+)^*=x^+\). For a monoid \(T\) and a semilattice with identity \(Y\), let \(T*Y\) be their semigroup free product. The authors show that under certain conditions, \(\mathcal P(T,Y)=(T*Y)/\sim\) is Ehresmann (resp. left or right Ehresmann), where \(\sim\) is a suitably chosen congruence. An Ehresmann monoid \(N\) with distinguished semilattice \(F\) is called \textit{a cover} of an Ehresmann monoid \(M\) with distinguished semilattice \(E\) if there exists a \((2,1,1,0)\)-morphism from \(N\) onto \(M\) injective on \(F\). It is proved that each Ehresmann monoid admits a cover of the form \(\mathcal P(X^*,E)\), where \(X\) is a generating set of \(M\), \(X^*\) the free monoid on \(X\) and \(E\) the distinguished semilattice of \(M\). For a set \(X\), the free Ehresmann monoid on \(X\) is proven to be of the form \(\mathcal P(X^*,Y)\).