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24 votes
3 answers
3k views

Non-abelian Grothendieck group

By general nonsense the forgetful functor from groups to monoids has a left adjoint. It maps a monoid $(X,\cdot,1)$ to the free group on $\{\underline{x} : x \in X\}$ modulo the relations $\underline{...
Martin Brandenburg's user avatar
12 votes
1 answer
744 views

Is the following construction of the 0-Hecke monoid (well) known?

Let W be a Coxeter group with Coxeter generators S. The corresponding 0-Hecke monoid H(W) has generating set S, the braid relations of W and the relations that each element of S is an idempotent. If ...
Benjamin Steinberg's user avatar
8 votes
2 answers
596 views

If a semigroup embeds into a group, then is it a subdirect product of groups?

The title has it all: Q. If a semigroup $S$ embeds into a group, then is $S$ (isomorphic to) a subdirect product of groups? If yes, then $S$ is a subdirect product of subdirectly irreducible groups,...
Salvo Tringali's user avatar
8 votes
1 answer
322 views

Does every cancellative duo semigroup embed into a group?

Prompted by the comments to a recent answer by YCor to a related question (here), I'd like to ask the following: Q. Does every cancellative duo semigroup embed into a group? A (multiplicatively ...
Salvo Tringali's user avatar
8 votes
1 answer
229 views

Embedding abelian cancellative Hausdorff topological semigroups into abelian Hausdorff topological groups

An abelian cancellative semigroup embeds (via a semigroup monomorphism) into an abelian group. What about an abelian cancellative Hausdorff topological semigroup that does not embed (via a ...
Salvo Tringali's user avatar
6 votes
1 answer
371 views

Embedding a cancellative monoid into another in such a way that a prescribed element becomes left-invertible

Let $\mathbb A = (A, +_A)$ be a cancellative, but possibly non-commutative, monoid with identity $0$, and fix an element $x \in A$. Does there always exist a cancellative monoid $\mathbb B = (B, +)$ ...
Salvo Tringali's user avatar
5 votes
3 answers
851 views

What are some examples of non-commutative $\mathbb{Q}$-monoids and/or $\mathbb{R}$-monoids?

Definition 0. Let $R$ denote a commutative semiring with $0$ and $1$. By an $R$-monoid, I mean a monoid $M$ equipped with an action $R \times M \rightarrow M$ denoted $r,m \mapsto m^r$, satisfying the ...
goblin GONE's user avatar
  • 3,793
5 votes
1 answer
597 views

Can every cancellative invertible-free monoid be embedded in a group?

A monoid is invertible-free if $xy=1$ implies $x=y=1$ for all $x,y$. Question: Can every cancellative invertible-free monoid be embedded in a group? I'm fairly sure that a quotient of the free product ...
David Pokorny's user avatar
4 votes
2 answers
393 views

Embedding a linearly ordered free monoid into a linearly ordered group

A linearly ordered (shortly, l.o.) monoid is a triple $\mathbb M = (M, \cdot, \le)$ for which $(M, \cdot)$ is a (multiplicatively written) monoid and $\le$ is a total order on $M$ such that $xy < ...
Salvo Tringali's user avatar
4 votes
1 answer
446 views

What is a "cusp" ("кусок") in relation to Guba's embedding theorem?

I'm confused by the definition of a "cusp" as found in V.S. Guba, Conditions for the embeddability of semigroups into groups, Math. Notes 56 (1994), Nos. 1-2, 763-769 (link). In the words of Mark ...
Salvo Tringali's user avatar
1 vote
1 answer
166 views

Reference for a proof of cancellation property of braid monoids

Let $M$ be a monoid. If $ab=ac$ implies that $b=c$, $a,b,c \in M$, then $M$ is said to have the left cancellation property. Similarly, the right cancellation property is $ba=ca$ implies that $b=c$. ...
Jianrong Li's user avatar
  • 6,201
0 votes
1 answer
305 views

Embedding a semigroup into a divisible semigroup

The following is motivated by the fact that I'd like to have a way, much better if canonical, to isometrically embed a normed group into a normed divisible group. But semigroups are a much more ...
Salvo Tringali's user avatar
0 votes
0 answers
61 views

Defining rank of an abelian subgroup using the second centralizer

I recently posted this on MSE, but didn't receive any feedback; so I'm posting it on MO. I recently came across this article which explored the maximal abelian subgroups of the symmetric group $S_n$. ...
dbossaller's user avatar
0 votes
0 answers
250 views

Has this theorem on cancellative monoid actions been discovered and published?

Does a statement equivalent to Theorem 3 below appear in the literature? If it does, what is the earliest published reference? Theorem 1. Let $W$ be a non-trivial cancellative invertible-free [1] ...
David Pokorny's user avatar