Semigroups generated by similarity orbits (Q5936175)

\(M_n(F)\) denotes the multiplicative semigroup of all \(n\times n\) matrices over a field \(F\). Let \(A\in M_n(F)\), and let \((A)\) be the subsemigroup of \(M_n(F)\) generated by all the conjugates of \(A\). The authors are interested in describing \((A)\) for a given \(A\in M_n(F)\). Evidently \(g^{-1}(A)g=(A)\) for all invertible \(g\in M_n(F)\), but \((A)\) need not be a subgroup of \(\text{GL}(n,F)\) for \(A\) invertible. Corollary 1.3 describes cases when \((A)\) is a subgroup (hence a normal subgroup) of \(\text{GL}(n,F)\) provided \(A\) is invertible. The most interesting part of the paper is the case \(A\) is singular. Theorem 3.2 states that in the case \(A\) singular the set \((A)\) consists of all matrices from \(M_n(F)\) with rank equal or less than the rank of \(A\). The authors remark that the same result was obtained by \textit{J. Araújo} and \textit{F. C. Silva} [Commun. Algebra 28, No. 8, 3679-3689 (2000; Zbl 0961.20049)]. It is worth to mention that the result of Theorem 3.2 is equivalent to the following: if \(A\) is singular then \((A)\) is an ideal of the semigroup \(M_n(F)\).