Cyclic rewriting and conjugacy problems

Cyclic words are equivalence classes of cyclic permutations of ordinary words. When a group is given by a rewriting relation, a rewriting system on cyclic words is induced, which is used to construct algorithms to find minimal length elements of conjugacy classes in the group. These techniques are applied to the universal groups of Stallings pregroups and in particular to free products with amalgamation, HNN-extensions and virtually free groups, to yield simple and intuitive algorithms and proofs of conjugacy criteria.Comment: 37 pages, 1 figure, submitted. Changes to introductio

Partial monoids: associativity and confluence

A partial monoid $P$ is a set with a partial multiplication $\times$ (and total identity $1_P$) which satisfies some associativity axiom. The partial monoid $P$ may be embedded in a free monoid $P^*$ and the product $\star$ is simulated by a string rewriting system on $P^*$ that consists in evaluating the concatenation of two letters as a product in $P$, when it is defined, and a letter $1_P$ as the empty word $\epsilon$. In this paper we study the profound relations between confluence for such a system and associativity of the multiplication. Moreover we develop a reduction strategy to ensure confluence and which allows us to define a multiplication on normal forms associative up to a given congruence of $P^*$. Finally we show that this operation is associative if, and only if, the rewriting system under consideration is confluent

Star-Free Languages are Church-Rosser Congruential

The class of Church-Rosser congruential languages has been introduced by McNaughton, Narendran, and Otto in 1988. A language L is Church-Rosser congruential (belongs to CRCL), if there is a finite, confluent, and length-reducing semi-Thue system S such that L is a finite union of congruence classes modulo S. To date, it is still open whether every regular language is in CRCL. In this paper, we show that every star-free language is in CRCL. In fact, we prove a stronger statement: For every star-free language L there exists a finite, confluent, and subword-reducing semi-Thue system S such that the total number of congruence classes modulo S is finite and such that L is a union of congruence classes modulo S. The construction turns out to be effective

Church-Rosser Systems, Codes with Bounded Synchronization Delay and Local Rees Extensions

What is the common link, if there is any, between Church-Rosser systems, prefix codes with bounded synchronization delay, and local Rees extensions? The first obvious answer is that each of these notions relates to topics of interest for WORDS: Church-Rosser systems are certain rewriting systems over words, codes are given by sets of words which form a basis of a free submonoid in the free monoid of all words (over a given alphabet) and local Rees extensions provide structural insight into regular languages over words. So, it seems to be a legitimate title for an extended abstract presented at the conference WORDS 2017. However, this work is more ambitious, it outlines some less obvious but much more interesting link between these topics. This link is based on a structure theory of finite monoids with varieties of groups and the concept of local divisors playing a prominent role. Parts of this work appeared in a similar form in conference proceedings where proofs and further material can be found.Comment: Extended abstract of an invited talk given at WORDS 201

Decidability and Independence of Conjugacy Problems in Finitely Presented Monoids

There have been several attempts to extend the notion of conjugacy from groups to monoids. The aim of this paper is study the decidability and independence of conjugacy problems for three of these notions (which we will denote by $\sim_p$, $\sim_o$, and $\sim_c$) in certain classes of finitely presented monoids. We will show that in the class of polycyclic monoids, $p$-conjugacy is "almost" transitive, $\sim_c$ is strictly included in $\sim_p$, and the $p$- and $c$-conjugacy problems are decidable with linear compexity. For other classes of monoids, the situation is more complicated. We show that there exists a monoid $M$ defined by a finite complete presentation such that the $c$-conjugacy problem for $M$ is undecidable, and that for finitely presented monoids, the $c$-conjugacy problem and the word problem are independent, as are the $c$-conjugacy and $p$-conjugacy problems.Comment: 12 pages. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1503.0091