Topologies for the free monoid (Q1173729)

Let \(L\) be a recognizable subset of a free semigroup \(A^*\), \(M\) the syntactic monoid of \(L\), \(E(M)\) is the set of idempotents of \(M\) and \(P\) is the image of \(L\) in \(M\). It is conjectured that if for each \(s\), \(t\in M\) and each \(e\in E(M)\), \(set\in P\) implies \(st\in P\), then \(L\) is closed in \(\mathcal T\), where the topology \(\mathcal T\) on \(A^*\) is defined by all the monoid morphisms from \(A^*\) into a discrete finite group. The conjecture is proven in two particular cases: if \(P\) is a submonoid of \(M\), or if the idempotents of \(M\) commute. The conjecture has several interesting consequences, for instance if it holds, then \(K(M)=D(M)\) ( Rhodes' Conjecture). Here \(K(M)=\cap 1\tau^{-1}\), where the intersection is taken over all relational morphisms \(\tau\) from \(M\) into a group and \(D(M)\) is the smallest submonoid of \(M\) satisfying the condition: for every \(s\), \(t\in M\) such that either \(sts=s\) or \(tst=t\), from \(u\in D(M)\) follows \(sut\in D(M)\).