Amenability and geometry of semigroups

Abstract

We study the connection between amenability, Folner conditions and the geometry of finitely generated semigroups. Using results of Klawe, we show that within an extremely broad class of semigroups (encompassing all groups, left cancellative semigroups, finite semigroups, compact topological semigroups, inverse semigroups, regular semigroups, commutative semigroups and semigroups with a left, right or two-sided zero element), left amenability coincides with the strong Folner condition. Within the same class, we show that a finitely generated semigroup of subexponential growth is left amenable if and only if it is left reversible. We show that the (weak) Folner condition is a left quasi-isometry invariant of finitely generated semigroups, and hence that left amenability is a left quasi-isometry invariant of left cancellative semigroups. We also give a new characterisation of the strong Folner condition in terms of the existence of weak Folner sets satisfying a local injectivity condition on the relevant translation action of the semigroup.