Presentations for singular wreath products

Abstract

For a monoid $M$ and a subsemigroup $S$ of the full transformation semigroup $T_n$, the wreath product $M\wr S$ is defined to be the semidirect product $M^n\rtimes S$, with the coordinatewise action of $S$ on $M^n$. The full wreath product $M\wr T_n$ is isomorphic to the endomorphism monoid of the free $M$-act on $n$ generators. Here, we are particularly interested in the case that $S=Sing_n$ is the singular part of $T_n$, consisting of all non-invertible transformations. Our main results are presentations for $M\wr Sing_n$ in terms of certain natural generating sets, and we prove these via general results on semidirect products and wreath products. We re-prove a classical result of Bulman-Fleming that $M\wr Sing_n$ is idempotent generated if and only if the set $M/L$ of $L$-classes of $M$ forms a chain under the usual ordering of $L$-classes, and we give a presentation for $M\wr Sing_n$ in terms of idempotent generators for such a monoid $M$. Among other results, we also give estimates for the minimal size of a generating set for $M\wr Sing_n$, as well as exact values in some cases (including the case that $M$ is finite and $M/L$ is a chain, in which case we also calculate the minimal size of an idempotent generating set). As an application of our results, we obtain a presentation (with idempotent generators) for the idempotent generated subsemigroup of the endomorphism monoid of a uniform partition of a finite set.