Ehresmann semigroups whose categories are EI and their representation theory

Abstract We study simple and projective modules of a certain class of Ehresmann semigroups, a well-studied generalization of inverse semigroups. Let S be a finite right (left) restriction Ehresmann semigroup whose corresponding Ehresmann category is an EI-category, that is, every endomorphism is an isomorphism. We show that the collection of finite right restriction Ehresmann semigroups whose categories are EI is a pseudovariety. We prove that the simple modules of the semigroup algebra k S (over any field k ) are formed by inducing the simple modules of the maximal subgroups of S via the corresponding Schutzenberger module. Moreover, we show that over fields with good characteristic the indecomposable projective modules can be described in a similar way but using generalized Green's relations instead of the standard ones. As a natural example, we consider the monoid PT n of all partial functions on an n-element set. Over the field of complex numbers, we give a natural description of its indecomposable projective modules and obtain a formula for their dimension. Moreover, we find certain zero entries in its Cartan matrix.