Consonant inverse semigroups

Abstract

We study necessary and sufficient conditions for two inverse semigroups to possess identical tight groupoids from the point of view of their algebraic, topological, and spectral order structures. The spectral order is a partial order relation that presents itself very naturally on the tight groupoid of an inverse semigroup and is related to the subtle difference between tight filters and ultra-filters. Up to a small glitch, the spectral order makes tight groupoids into ordered groupoids in Ehresmann's sense. We introduce the notions of tight injectivity and tight surjectivity for inverse semigroup homomorphisms and show that, together, they provide necessary and sufficient conditions for the induced map to be an isomorphism of ordered topological groupoids. A homomorphism is then called a consonance provided these conditions are met. A consonance is not necessarily injective or surjective, so it is likely not an invertible map. Due to this fact, the existence of a consonance between inverse semigroups does not define an equivalence relation, so we consider instead the equivalence relation it generates. When it applies to a pair of inverse semigroups we say that they are consonant. The first main result of the paper shows that two inverse semigroups $S_1$ and $S_2$ are consonant if and only if their tight groupoids are isomorphic as ordered topological groupoids, if and only if there exists another inverse semigroup $T$ and consonances from each $S_i$ to $T$. We also prove that, given an inverse semigroup $S$, there exists a largest inverse semigroup consonant to $S$, denoted $S^\tau$, and called the tight envelope of $S$. In a nutshell, $S^\tau$ is the inverse semigroup formed by the compact up-slices (i.e.~slices that are up-sets relative to the spectral order) in the tight groupoid of $S$. Among other thi ... (cut short by the system)