Globalization of partial actions of semigroups (Q6047296)

The overall purpose of this paper is to extend the construction of \textit{C. Hollings} [Semigroup Forum 75, No. 2, 293--316 (2007; Zbl 1180.20053)] and \textit{M. Megrelishvili} and \textit{L. Schröder} [Topology Appl. 145, No. 1--3, 119--145 (2004; Zbl 1079.54016)], and the universality of the construction proven in the latter, from monoid actions to semigroup actions, and to add what might be considered a complementary construction, new in both cases. To clarify the definitions briefly, a (right) partial action of a semigroup \(S\) on a set \(A\) is a partial map \(A \times S \rightarrow S\), \((a,s) \mapsto a \cdot s\), such that if \(a \cdot s\) and \((a \cdot s) \cdot t\) are defined, then \(a \cdot st\) is defined and equals \((a \cdot s) \cdot t\). A globalization is, loosely speaking, a global action of \(S\) on a superset \(B\) of \(A\) that restricts to the original action in a natural way. If such a globalization exists, the partial action is necessarily \textit{strong}, that is, if \(a\cdot s\) and \(a \cdot st\) are defined, then \((a\cdot s) \cdot t\) is defined and equals \(a \cdot st\). Corresponding to unital actions for monoids, a partial action is \textit{unitary} if for each \(a \in A\), there exist \(b \in A\) and \(s \in S\) such that \(a = b \cdot s\). For any partial action of \(S\) on \(A\), there is then a global action of \(S\) on the tensor product \(A \otimes S\). As long as the partial action is both strong and \textit{firm}, that is, if \(a\cdot s = b \cdot t\) then \(a \otimes s = b \otimes t\), then \(A\) embeds naturally in \(A \otimes S\). In that case, the associated global action of \(S\) on \(A \otimes S\) is proven to be an initial object in the category of globalizations of the partial action. Further, if \(S^2 = S\), this global action is also firm and is universal among the firm globalizations, in the appropriate sense. It is shown how the monoidal results follow. Without going into details here, a different `hom-set' globalization \(A^S\) of a strong, unitary and `nonsingular' partial action is shown to be a terminal object in the appropriate category. This is new in the monoidal situation as well. An example shows that the two can be far apart, in contrast with the group situation, where all globalizations are isomorphic.