Non-commutative Stone duality: inverse semigroups, topological groupoids and C*-algebras

We study a non-commutative generalization of Stone duality that connects a class of inverse semigroups, called Boolean inverse $\wedge$-semigroups, with a class of topological groupoids, called Hausdorff Boolean groupoids. Much of the paper is given over to showing that Boolean inverse $\wedge$-semigroups arise as completions of inverse semigroups we call pre-Boolean. An inverse $\wedge$-semigroup is pre-Boolean if and only if every tight filter is an ultrafilter, where the definition of a tight filter is obtained by combining work of both Exel and Lenz. A simple necessary condition for a semigroup to be pre-Boolean is derived and a variety of examples of inverse semigroups are shown to satisfy it. Thus the polycyclic inverse monoids, and certain Rees matrix semigroups over the polycyclics, are pre-Boolean and it is proved that the groups of units of their completions are precisely the Thompson-Higman groups $G_{n,r}$. The inverse semigroups arising from suitable directed graphs are also pre-Boolean and the topological groupoids arising from these graph inverse semigroups under our non-commutative Stone duality are the groupoids that arise from the Cuntz-Krieger $C^{\ast}$-algebras.

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