Nilpotents in semigroups of partial transformations

Abstract

In 1987, Sullivan determined when a partial transformation α of an infinite set X can be written as a product of nilpotent transformations of the same set: he showed that when this is possible and the cardinal of X is regular then α is a product of 3 or fewer nilpotents with index at most 3. Here, we show that 3 is best possible on both counts, consider the corresponding question when the cardinal of X is singular, and investigate the role of nilpotents with index 2. We also prove that the nilpotent-generated semigroup is idempotent-generated but not conversely.