We investigate semigroups S which have the property that every subsemigroup of $S\times S$ which contains the diagonal $\{ (s,s)\colon s\in S\}$ is necessarily a congruence on S. We call such an S a DSC semigroup. It is well known that all finite groups are DSC, and easy to see that every DSC semigroup must be simple. Building on this, we show that for broad classes of semigroups, including periodic, stable, inverse and several well-known types of simple semigroups, the only DSC members are groups. However, it turns out that there exist nongroup DSC semigroups, which we obtain by utilising a construction introduced by Byleen for the purpose of constructing interesting congruence-free semigroups. Such examples can additionally be regular or bisimple.

The monogenic free inverse semigroup $FI_1$ is not finitely presented as a semigroup due to the classic result by Schein (1975). We extend this result and prove that a finitely generated subsemigroup of $FI_1$ is finitely presented if and only if it contains only finitely many idempotents. As a consequence, we derive that an inverse subsemigroup of $FI_1$ is finitely presented as a semigroup if and only if it is a finite semilattice.

Let $\mathbb {Z}$ be the additive (semi)group of integers. We prove that for a finite semigroup S the direct product $\mathbb {Z}\times S$ contains only countably many subdirect products (up to isomorphism) if and only if S is regular. As a corollary we show that $\mathbb {Z}\times S$ has only countably many subsemigroups (up to isomorphism) if and only if S is completely regular.

We investigate the groups of units of one-relator and special inverse monoids. These are inverse monoids which are defined by presentations, where all the defining relations are of the form $r=1$. We develop new approaches for finding presentations for the group of units of a special inverse monoid, and apply these methods to give conditions under which the group admits a presentation with the same number of defining relations as the monoid. In particular, our results give sufficient conditions for the group of units of a one-relator inverse monoid to be a one-relator group. When these conditions are satisfied, these results give inverse semigroup theoretic analogues of classical results of Adjan for one-relator monoids, and Makanin for special monoids. In contrast, we show that in general these classical results do not hold for one-relator and special inverse monoids. In particular, we show that there exists a one-relator special inverse monoid whose group of units is not a one-relator group (with respect to any generating set), and we show that there exists a finitely presented special inverse monoid whose group of units is not finitely presented.

A semigroup S is said to be right pseudo-finite if the universal right congruence can be generated by a finite set $U\subseteq S\times S$, and there is a bound on the length of derivations for an arbitrary pair $(s,t)\in S\times S$ as a consequence of those in U. This article explores the existence and nature of a minimal ideal in a right pseudo-finite semigroup. Continuing the theme started in an earlier work by Dandan et al., we show that in several natural classes of monoids, right pseudo-finiteness implies the existence of a completely simple minimal ideal. This is the case for orthodox monoids, completely regular monoids, and right reversible monoids, which include all commutative monoids. We also show that certain other conditions imply the existence of a minimal ideal, which need not be completely simple; notably, this is the case for semigroups in which one of the Green’s preorders ${\leq _{\mathcal {L}}}$ or ${\leq _{\mathcal {J}}}$ is left compatible with multiplication. Finally, we establish a number of examples of pseudo-finite monoids without a minimal ideal. We develop an explicit construction that yields such examples with additional desired properties, for instance, regularity or ${\mathcal {J}}$-triviality.

Taking residual finiteness as a starting point, we consider three related finiteness properties: weak subsemigroup separability, strong subsemigroup separability and complete separability. We investigate whether each of these properties is inherited by Schützenberger groups. The main result of this paper states that for a finitely generated commutative semigroup S, these three separability conditions coincide and are equivalent to every $\mathcal {H}$-class of S being finite. We also provide examples to show that these properties in general differ for commutative semigroups and finitely generated semigroups. For a semigroup with finitely many $\mathcal {H}$-classes, we investigate whether it has one of these properties if and only if all its Schützenberger groups have the property.

The direct product $\mathbb{N}\times \mathbb{N}$ of two free monogenic semigroups contains uncountably many pairwise nonisomorphic subdirect products. Furthermore, the following hold for $\mathbb{N}\times S$, where $S$ is a finite semigroup. It contains only countably many pairwise nonisomorphic subsemigroups if and only if $S$ is a union of groups. And it contains only countably many pairwise nonisomorphic subdirect products if and only if every element of $S$ has a relative left or right identity element.

A monoid S is said to be right coherent if every finitely generated subact of every finitely presented right S-act is finitely presented. Left coherency is defined dually and S is coherent if it is both right and left coherent. These notions are analogous to those for a ring R (where, of course, S-acts are replaced by R-modules). Choo et al. have shown that free rings are coherent. In this paper we prove that, correspondingly, any free monoid is coherent, thus answering a question posed by Gould in 1992.

Let S be an inverse semigroup and let π:S→T be a surjective homomorphism with kernel K. We show how to obtain a presentation for K from a presentation for S, and vice versa. We then investigate the relationship between the properties of S, K and T, focusing mainly on finiteness conditions. In particular we consider finite presentability, solubility of the word problem, residual finiteness, and the homological finiteness property FPn. Our results extend several classical results from combinatorial group theory concerning group extensions to inverse semigroups. Examples are also provided that highlight the differences with the special case of groups.

An interval in a combinatorial structure R is a set I of points that are related to every point in R∖I in the same way. A structure is simple if it has no proper intervals. Every combinatorial structure can be expressed as an inflation of a simple structure by structures of smaller sizes—this is called the substitution (or modular) decomposition. In this paper we prove several results of the following type: an arbitrary structure S of size n belonging to a class 𝒞 can be embedded into a simple structure from 𝒞 by adding at most f(n) elements. We prove such results when 𝒞 is the class of all tournaments, graphs, permutations, posets, digraphs, oriented graphs and general relational structures containing a relation of arity greater than two. The functions f(n) in these cases are 2, ⌈log 2(n+1)⌉, ⌈(n+1)/2⌉, ⌈(n+1)/2⌉, ⌈log 4(n+1)⌉, ⌈log 3(n+1)⌉ and 1, respectively. In each case these bounds are the best possible.

It is known that, for semigroups, the property of admitting a finite presentation is preserved on passing to subsemigroups and extensions of finite Rees index. The present paper shows that the same holds true for Malcev, cancellative, left-cancellative and right-cancellative presentations. (A Malcev (respectively, cancellative, left-cancellative, right-cancellative) presentation is a presentation of a special type that can be used to define any group-embeddable (respectively, cancellative, left-cancellative, right-cancellative) semigroup.)

The finite generation and presentation of Schützenberger products of semigroups are investigated. A general necessary and sufficient condition is established for finite generation. The Schützenberger product of two groups is finitely presented as an inverse semigroup if and only if the groups are finitely presented, but is not finitely presented as a semigroup unless both groups are finite.

This paper shows that, given a finite subset $X$ of a finitely generated virtually free group $F$, the freeness of the subsemigroup of $F$ generated by $X$ can be tested algorithmically. (A group is virtually free if it contains a free subgroup of finite index.) It is then shown that every finitely generated subsemigroup of $F$ has a finite Malcev presentation (a type of semigroup presentation which can be used to define any semigroup that embeds in a group), and that such a presentation can be effectively found from any finite generating set.

The diagonal right (respectively, left) act of a semigroup S is the set S × S on which S acts via (x, y) s = (xs, ys) (respectively, s (x, y) = (sx, sy)); the same set with both actions is the diagonal bi-act. The diagonal right (respectively, left, bi-) act is said to be finitely generated if there is a finite set A ⊆ S × S such that S × S = AS1 (respectively, S × S = S1A, S × S = SlASl).

In this paper we consider the question of finite generation for diagonal acts of certain infinite semigroups of transformations and relations. We show that the semi-groups of full transformations, partial transformations and binary relations on an infinite set each have cyclic diagonal right and left acts. The semigroup of full finite-to-one transformations on an infinite set has a cyclic diagonal right act but its diagonal left act is not finitely generated. The semigroup of partial injections on an infinite set has neither finitely generated diagonal right nor left act, but has a cyclic diagonal bi-act. The semigroup of bijections (symmetric group) on an infinite set does not have any finitely generated diagonal acts.