Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 January 2010
A group G is called morphic if every endomorphism α:G→G for which Gα◃G satisfies G/Gα≅ker (α). Call an endomorphism α∈end(G) regular if αβα=α for some β∈end(G), and call α unit regular if β can be chosen to be an automorphism of G. The main purpose of this paper is to prove the following group-theoretic analogue of a theorem of Ehrlich: if G is a morphic group, an endomorphism α:G→G for which Gα◃G is unit regular if and only if it is regular. As an application, a cancellation theorem is proved that characterizes the morphic groups among those with regular endomorphism monoids.
This research was supported in part by Discovery Grants from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.