Automatic structures for subsemigroups of Baumslag-Solitar semigroups. (Q2447245)

Baumslag-Solitar groups which have presentations of the form \(\text{Gp}\langle x,y\mid(yx^m,x^ny)\rangle\), are denoted by \(G(m,n)\) and Baumslag-Solitar semigroups which have presentations \(\text{Sg}\langle x,y\mid(yx^m,x^ny)\rangle\), are denoted by \(S(m,n)\). It is known that the semigroup \(S(m,n)\) embeds into the group \(G(m,n)\) for any natural \(m,n\). The present paper studies automatic structures for finitely generated subsemigroups of Baumslag-Solitar semigroups. The author notes in the introduction that ``While automatic structures for groups have an elegant geometric characterization known as the fellow traveller property, this characterization does not extend to automatic structures for general semigroups. However, automatic structures for group-embeddable semigroups do inherit many of the pleasant geometric properties of automatic groups [see \textit{A. J. Cain} et al., J. Group Theory 9, No. 3, 397-426 (2006; Zbl 1151.20044)]. In the present paper, rather more sophisticated geometric reasoning is deployed to prove that all finitely generated subsemigroups of Baumslag-Solitar semigroup \(S(m,n)\) are (right-) automatic when \(m>n\).'' As a corollary he obtains the result that finitely generated subsemigroups of Baumslag-Solitar semigroup \(S(m,n)\) are left-automatic when \(m<n\). In 2001 \textit{M. Hoffmann} [Automatic semigroups. Ph.D. Thesis, Univ. Leicester (2001)] used syntactic reasoning to show that the Baumslag-Solitar semigroup \(S(m,n)\) is automatic if \(m>n\) and left-automatic if \(m<n\). Moreover, it is shown in the present paper that a Baumslag-Solitar semigroup \(S(m,m)\) contains finitely generated subsemigroups that are neither right- nor left-automatic. The results of this paper have implications for the theory of Malcev presentations as a special type of semigroup presentation for semigroups embeddable into groups.