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We generalize the character formulas for multiplicities of irreducible constituents from group theory to semigroup theory using Rota's theory of Möbius inversion. The technique works for a large class of semigroups including: inverse semigroups, semigroups with commuting idempotents, idempotent semigroups and semigroups with basic algebras. Using these tools we are able to give a complete description of the spectra of random walks on finite semigroups admitting a faithful representation by upper triangular matrices over the complex numbers. These include the random walks on chambers of hyperplane arrangements studied by Bidigare, Hanlon, Rockmore, Brown and Diaconis. Applications are also given to decomposing tensor powers and exterior products of rook matrix representations of inverse semigroups, generalizing and simplifying earlier results of Solomon for the rook monoid.

Abstract. In this paper we characterize the congruence associated to the direct sum of all irreducible representations of a finite semigroup over an arbitrary field, generalizing results of Rhodes for the field of complex numbers. Applications are given to obtain many new results, as well as easier proofs of several results in the literature, involving: triangularizability of finite semigroups; which semigroups have (split) basic semigroup algebras, two-sided semidirect product decompositions of finite monoids; unambiguous products of rational languages; products of rational languages with counter; andČerný's conjecture for an important class of automata.