In mathematics

Mathematics

Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...

, a completely regular semigroup is a semigroup

Semigroup

In mathematics, a semigroup is an algebraic structure consisting of a set together with an associative binary operation. A semigroup generalizes a monoid in that there might not exist an identity element...

 in which every element is in some subgroup

Subgroup

In group theory, given a group G under a binary operation *, a subset H of G is called a subgroup of G if H also forms a group under the operation *. More precisely, H is a subgroup of G if the restriction of * to H x H is a group operation on H...

 of the semigroup. The class

Class (set theory)

In set theory and its applications throughout mathematics, a class is a collection of sets which can be unambiguously defined by a property that all its members share. The precise definition of "class" depends on foundational context...

 of completely regular semigroups forms an important subclass of the class

Class (set theory)

In set theory and its applications throughout mathematics, a class is a collection of sets which can be unambiguously defined by a property that all its members share. The precise definition of "class" depends on foundational context...

 of regular semigroup

Regular semigroup

A regular semigroup is a semigroup S in which every element is regular, i.e., for each element a, there exists an element x such that axa = a. Regular semigroups are one of the most-studied classes of semigroups, and their structure is particularly amenable to study via Green's relations.- Origins...

s, the class of inverse semigroup

Inverse semigroup

In mathematics, an inverse semigroup S is a semigroup in which every element x in S has a unique inversey in S in the sense that x = xyx and y = yxy...

s being another such subclass. A H Clifford was the first to publish a major paper on completely regular semigroups though he used the terminology "semigroups admitting relative inverses" to refer to such semigroups. The name "completely regular semigroup" stems from Lyapin's book on semigroups. Completely regular semigroups are also called Clifford semigroups.
In a completely regular semigroup, each Green

Green's relations

In mathematics, Green's relations are five equivalence relations that characterise the elements of a semigroup in terms of the principal ideals they generate. The relations are named for James Alexander Green, who introduced them in a paper of 1951...

 H-class is a group

Group (mathematics)

In mathematics, a group is an algebraic structure consisting of a set together with an operation that combines any two of its elements to form a third element. To qualify as a group, the set and the operation must satisfy a few conditions called group axioms, namely closure, associativity, identity...

 and the semigroup is the union

Union (set theory)

In set theory, the union of a collection of sets is the set of all distinct elements in the collection. The union of a collection of sets S_1, S_2, S_3, \dots , S_n\,\! gives a set S_1 \cup S_2 \cup S_3 \cup \dots \cup S_n.- Definition :...

of these groups. Hence completely regular semigroups are also referred to as "unions of groups".

Examples

"While there is an abundance of natural examples
of inverse semigroups, for completely regular semigroups the examples (beyond completely
simple semigroups) are mostly artificially constructed: the minimum ideal of a
finite semigroup is completely simple, and the various relatively free completely regular
semigroups are the other more or less natural examples."