PROFINITE SEMIGROUPS, VARIETIES, EXPANSIONS AND THE STRUCTURE OF RELATIVELY FREE PROFINITE SEMIGROUPS

Building on the now generally accepted thesis that profinite semigroups are important to the study of finite semigroups, this paper proposes to apply various of the techniques, already used in studying algebraic semigroups, to profinite semigroups. The goal in mind is to understand free profinite semigroups on a finite set. To do this we define profinite varieties. We then introduce expansions of profinite semigroups, giving examples of several classes of such expansions. These expansions will then be useful in studying various structural properties of relatively free profinite semigroups, since these semigroups will be fixed points of certain expansions. This study also requires a look at profinite categories, semigroupoids, and Cayley graphs, all of which we handle in turn. We also study the structure of the minimal ideal of relatively free profinite semigroups showing, in particular, that the minimal ideal of the free profinite semigroup on a finite set with more than two generators is not a relatively free profinite completely simple semigroup, as well as some generalizations to related pseudovarieties.