Products of idempotents in finite full transformation semigroups (Q5903825)

Let X be the finite set \(\{1,2,...,n\}\) and let \(S_ n\) be the semigroup (under composition of mappings) of all singular mappings from X into itself. Let E be the set of all idempotents of \(S_ n\). It is known that E generates \(S_ n\), and one has the more exact result that \(E^ k=S_ n\), \(E^{k-1}\neq S_ n\), where \(k=[3/2(n-1)]\). Thus every element in \(S_ n\) is expressible as a finite product of idempotents of \(S_ n\). For each \(\alpha \in S_ n\), there exists a unique positive integer \(k(\alpha)\) such that \(\alpha \in E^{k(\alpha)}\), \(\alpha \not\in E^{k(\alpha)-1}\). The purpose of this paper is to determine \(k(\alpha)\) for any \(\alpha \in S_ n.\) Let \(\alpha \in S_ n\). The gravity of \(\alpha\) is defined by \(g(\alpha)=n+c(\alpha)-f(\alpha)\), where c(\(\alpha)\) is the number of cyclic orbits of \(\alpha\) and \(f(\alpha)\) is the number of fixed points of \(\alpha\), and the rank of \(\alpha\) and defect of \(\alpha\) are defined by \(r(\alpha)=| im \alpha |\) and \(d(\alpha)=n-r(\alpha)\), respectively. Let \(E_ 1\) be the set of idempotents of defect 1 in \(S_ n\). Since an idempotent of defect d is a product of d idempotents of defect 1, \(E_ 1\) also generates \(S_ n\). Let \(k_ 1(\alpha)\) be the least integer k for which \(\alpha \in E^ k_ 1\). N. Iwahori and J. M. Howie showed that \(k_ 1(\alpha)=g(\alpha)\) for any \(\alpha \in S_ n\). Thus, for any \(\alpha\) of defect 1, k(\(\alpha)\) is completely determined, that is, \(k(\alpha)=k_ 1(\alpha)=g(\alpha)\). By using the method in the proof of the above result, we obtain: Theorem. For any \(\alpha \in S_ n\), \(k(\alpha)=(g(\alpha)/d(\alpha))^{\#}\) or \(k(\alpha)=(g(\alpha)/d(\alpha))^{\#}+1\), moreover \(k(\alpha)=(g(\alpha)/d(\alpha))^{\#}\) if \(g(\alpha)\equiv 1 mod d(\alpha)\), where \(x^{\#}\) for any real number x denotes the least integer m such that \(m\geq x\).