On supports of semigroups of measures

Abstract

Let S denote a compact semitopological semigroup (i.e. the multiplication is separately continuous) and P(S) the set of probability measures on S. Then P(S) is a compact semitopological semigroup under convolution and the weak * topology (4). Let Γ be a subsemigroup of P(S) and where supp μ is the support of μ ∈P(S). In the case in which S is commutative it was shown by Glicksberg in (4) that S(Γ) is an algebraic group in S if Γ is an algebraic group. For a general semigroup S, Pym (7) considered Γ = {η}, η being an idempotent, and established that S(Γ) is a topologically simple subsemigroup of S, i.e. every ideal of S(Γ) is dense in S(Γ). In this note we prove that if Γ is a simple subsemigroup of P(S) (a semigroup is simple if it contains no proper ideal) which contains an idempotent then S(Γ) is a topologically simple subsemigroup of S. We also give an example to show that our conclusion (hence also Pym's) is best possible in the sense that S(Γ) is not simple in general