Semigroup Compactifications of Direct and Semidirect Products

Abstract

AbstractA classical result of I. Glicksberg and K. de Leeuw asserts that the almost periodic compactification of a direct product S × T of abelian semigroups with identity is (canonically isomorphic to) the direct product of the almost periodic compactiflcations of S and T. Some efforts have been made to generalize this result and recently H. D. Junghenn and B. T. Lerner have proved a theorem giving necessary and sufficient conditions for an F-compactification of a semidirect product S⊗σT to be a semidirect product of compactiflcations of S and T. A different such theorem is presented here along with a number of corollaries and examples which illustrate its scope and limitations. Some behaviour that can occur for semidirect products, but not for direct products, is exposed