Congruence extensions in regular semigroups (Q750629)

Let S be a regular semigroup and \(a\in S\). Then V(a) will denote the set of inverses of a in S. A subsemigroup R of S is full if R contains all the idempotents of S. The idempotent generated subsemigroup C of S is the least full regular subsemigroup of S. A subsemigroup R of S is self- conjugate if \(a'Ra\leq R\) for every \(a\in S\) and \(a'\in V(a)\). One of the key results of the paper states that if a congruence relation \(\tau\) on a self-conjugate full regular subsemigroup R of S extends to a congruence \(\tau^*\) on S, then \((a,b)\in \tau^*\) if and only if there exist \(u\in R\), \(v\in C\), \(a'\in V(a)\), \(b'\in V(b)\), such that \(ua=bv\), \(u\tau aa'\), \(v\tau b'b\). This description of \(\tau^*\) is said to be in closed form modulo \(\tau\) since the description of \(\tau^*\) does not involve closure operations. Congruences \(\rho\) and \(\theta\) on S are said to be T-related if and only if their restrictions to the set of idempotents of S coincide. Given any orthodox congruence \(\rho\) on S, a closed form description of the least orthodox congruence which is T-related to \(\rho\) is obtained, and this result is then applied to a description of the least inverse congruence on S. A last section deals with the special situation where the idempotent generated subsemigroup C of S is a union of groups.