Skew bracoids (Q6087809)

Skew brace is an algebraic structure introduced in [\textit{L. Guarnieri} and \textit{L. Vendramin}, Math. Comput. 86, 2519--2534 (2017; Zbl 1371.16037)] as a tool to study the non-degenerate set-theoretic solutions to the Yang-Baxter equation. Recall that a (left) \textit{skew brace} is a triplet \((B,\star,\cdot)\) for which \((B,\star)\) and \((B,\cdot)\) are groups satisfying \[ a\cdot (b\star c) = (a\cdot b)\star a^{-1} \star (a\cdot c) \] for all \(a,b,c\in B\), where \(a^{-1}\) denotes the inverse of \(a\) with respect to \(\star\). It is known that for any group \(N = (N,\star)\), there is a one-to-one correspondence between the binary operations \(\cdot\) on \(N\) such that \((N,\star,\cdot)\) is a skew brace and the regular subgroups lying in the holomorph \(\mathrm{Hol}(N)\) of \(N\). On the other hand, by work of \textit{C. Greither} and \textit{B. Pareigis} [J. Algebra 106, 239--258 (1987; Zbl 0615.12026)] and \textit{N. P. Byott} [Commun. Algebra 24, 3217--3228 (1996; Zbl 0878.12001)], for any finite Galois extension \(L/K\) with Galois group \(G = (G,\cdot)\), there is a (not necessarily one-to-one) correspondence between Hopf-Galois structures on \(L/K\) and the regular subgroups isomorphic to \(G\) lying in \(\mathrm{Hol}(N)\) for \(N\) ranging over the groups of the same order as \(G\). Since both objects are related to regular subgroups lying in the holomorph, one sees that there is a connection between skew braces and Hopf-Galois structures on finite Galois extensions. Their correspondence has recently been made explicit by [\textit{L. Stefanello} and \textit{S. Trappeniers}, Bull. Lond. Math. Soc. 55, 1726--1748 (2023; Zbl 07738097)], where it was shown that for any finite Galois extension \(L/K\) with Galois group \(G = (G,\cdot)\), there is a bijection between the binary operations \(\star\) on \(G\) such that \((G,\star,\cdot)\) is a skew brace and the Hopf-Galois structures on \(L/K\). The work of Greither-Pareigis [loc. cit.] and Byott [loc. cit.] considers the more general setting where \(L/K\) is a finite separable extension which is not necessarily Galois. It is natural to ask whether one can extend the Stefanello-Trappeniers bijection to all separable extensions by generalizing the definition of skew braces. In the paper under review, the authors propose the following definition: A (left) \textit{skew bracoid} is a 5-tuple \((G,\cdot,N,\star,\odot)\) for which \((G,\cdot)\) and \((N,\star)\) are groups and \(\odot\) is a transitive action of \((G,\cdot)\) on \(N\) such that \[ g \odot (\eta \star \mu) = (g\odot \eta) \star (g\odot e_N)^{-1} \star (g\odot \mu) \] for all \(g\in G\) and \(\eta,\mu\in N\). One can recover the definition of a skew brace by taking \(G = (B,\cdot)\), \(N=(B,\star)\), and \(\odot = \cdot\). The authors build the theory of skew bracoids by studying sub-structures, homomorphisms, etc. Moreover, using skew bracoids, they are able to generalize the Stefanello-Trappeniers bijection to arbitrary finite separable extensions (see Theorem 5.1 of the paper).