Finiteness properties for semigroups and their substructures

In this thesis we consider finiteness properties of infinite semigroups and infinite monoids. In particular we investigate finite presentations which have the property finite derivation type (FDT) or the property that they admit a presentation by a finite complete rewriting system (FCRS). We ask the question of whether these properties are inherited between a semigroup (or monoid) and particular substructures like subsemigroups (or submonoids). We first investigate completely simple semigroups (which are isomorphic to Rees matrix semigroups) that have a single R-class or a single L-class. We prove that the maximal subgroups admit a presentation by a FCRS if and only if the semigroup admits a presentation by a FCRS with respect to a sparse generating set. Next we move on to our second stream of research and consider the property that a presentation has FDT. We study unitary subsemigroups with finite strict boundary (a condition given in terms of the Cayley graph) and prove that such subsemigroups inherit the property of FDT. We prove that every finitely generated subsemigroup of the Bicyclic monoid admits a presentation by a FCRS. Finally we investigate FDT and FCRS for finitely generated submonoids of Plactic monoids, proving that these properties are satisfied in several cases. We make use of the fact that the Plactic monoid is known for having elements which correspond to semistandard tableau

Prefix monoids of groups and right units of special inverse monoids

A prefix monoid is a finitely generated submonoid of a finitely presented group generated by the prefixes of its defining relators. Important results of Guba (1997), and of Ivanov, Margolis and Meakin (2001), show how the word problem for certain one-relator monoids, and inverse monoids, can be reduced to solving the membership problem in prefix monoids of certain one-relator groups. Motivated by this, in this paper we study the class of prefix monoids of finitely presented groups. We obtain a complete description of this class of monoids. All monoids in this family are finitely generated, recursively presented and group-embeddable. Our results show that not every finitely generated recursively presented group-embeddable monoid is a prefix monoid, but for every such monoid if we take a free product with a suitably chosen free monoid of finite rank, then we do obtain a prefix monoid. Conversely we prove that every prefix monoid arises in this way. Also, we show that the groups that arise as groups of units of prefix monoids are precisely the finitely generated recursively presented groups, while the groups that arise as Sch\"utzenberger groups of prefix monoids are exactly the recursively enumerable subgroups of finitely presented groups. We obtain an analogous result classifying the Sch\"utzenberger groups of monoids of right units of special inverse monoids. We also give some examples of right cancellative monoids arising as monoids of right units of finitely presented special inverse monoids, and show that not all right cancellative recursively presented monoids belong to this class.Comment: 22 page

The word problem and combinatorial methods for groups and semigroups

The subject matter of this thesis is combinatorial semigroup theory. It includes material, in no particular order, from combinatorial and geometric group theory, formal language theory, theoretical computer science, the history of mathematics, formal logic, model theory, graph theory, and decidability theory. In Chapter 1, we will give an overview of the mathematical background required to state the results of the remaining chapters. The only originality therein lies in the exposition of special monoids presented in §1.3, which uni.es the approaches by several authors. In Chapter 2, we introduce some general algebraic and language-theoretic constructions which will be useful in subsequent chapters. As a corollary of these general methods, we recover and generalise a recent result by Brough, Cain & Pfei.er that the class of monoids with context-free word problem is closed under taking free products. In Chapter 3, we study language-theoretic and algebraic properties of special monoids, and completely classify this theory in terms of the group of units. As a result, we generalise the Muller-Schupp theorem to special monoids, and answer a question posed by Zhang in 1992. In Chapter 4, we give a similar treatment to weakly compressible monoids, and characterise their language-theoretic properties. As a corollary, we deduce many new results for one-relation monoids, including solving the rational subset membership problem for many such monoids. We also prove, among many other results, that it is decidable whether a one-relation monoid containing a non-trivial idempotent has context-free word problem. In Chapter 5, we study context-free graphs, and connect the algebraic theory of special monoids with the geometric behaviour of their Cayley graphs. This generalises the geometric aspects of the Muller-Schupp theorem for groups to special monoids. We study the growth rate of special monoids, and prove that a special monoid of intermediate growth is a group