Largeness of the set of finite products in a semigroup (Q2481323)

For a sequence \(X\) in a semigroup \(S\), let \(F\) be the set of finite products (or sums) of sequence elements. The article investigates how various largeness properties of the set \(F\) are related to each other, namely, the properties `(piecewise) syndetic', `(strongly) central', `thick', `\(IP\)', and the dual properties `central\(^*\)' and `\(IP^*\)'. The proofs and some of the definitions exploit the semigroup structure on the Stone-Čech compactification \(\beta S\). Often the results apply only to nice sequences, where nice means that the product representation of the elements of \(F\) is unique and that the following holds, where \(X_k\) denotes the subsequence obtained by dropping the first \(k-1\) members from \(X\) and \(F_k\) contains the finite sums of \(X_k\): for every left nonidentity \(s\in S \setminus F\), some intersection \(F \cap sF_k\) is empty. Theorem 2.10 asserts that the properties piecewise syndetic, syndetic, strongly central, and central for \(F\) and every \(F_k\) all coincide in the case of a nice \(X\) consisting of left cancellable elements. Under the same assumptions on \(X\), if the set \(F\) is thick, then it consists of all left nonidentities. Niceness is indispensable here, as there is an \(X\) in \(\mathbb N\) such that the representation of finite sums is unique and \(F\) is thick but not syndetic. Nice sequences do exist; in \(\mathbb N\), a sequence is nice iff \(X\) is strictly larger than the sequence \(\Sigma X\) obtained from \(X\) by series summation: \(x_{n+1} > \Sigma_1^nx_k\). Via homomorphisms \(S \to \mathbb N\), this yields a similar sufficient condition in other semigroups. Nice sequences such that \(F\) consists of all nonidentity elements are shown to exist for \(\mathbb Z\), for the sum of countably many copies of \(\mathbb Z\), and for the multiplicative group of positive rationals. There is a countable group \(S\) such that for no sequence \(X\) with unique sum representation the set \(F\) is piecewise syndetic. For a nondecreasing sequence \(X\) in \(\mathbb N\), the set \(F\) is syndetic iff \(X - \Sigma X\) is bounded from above. There is a nice sequence \(X\) in \(\mathbb N\) such that \(F\) is syndetic and central, but neither \(IP^*\) nor central\(^*\).