A note on free inverse semigroups
Liam O’Carroll · Proceedings of the Edinburgh Mathematical Society · 1974
Recently Scheiblich (7) and Munn (3), amongst others, have given explicit constructions for FIA, the free inverse semigroup on a non-empty set A. Further, Reilly (5) has investigated the free inverse subsemigroups of FIA. In this note we generalise two of Reilly's lesser results, and also characterise the surjective endomorphisms of FIA. The latter enables us to determine the group of automorphisms of FIA, and to show that if A is finite then FIA is Hopfian (a result proved independently by Munn (3)). Finally, we give an alternative proof of Reilly's main theorem, which uses Munn's theory of birooted trees.