Periodic subsemigroups of endomorphism monoids. (Q369384)

In a semigroup \(S\), an element \(s\) is said to be periodic if the subsemigroup \(\langle s\rangle=\{s,s^2,s^3,\ldots\}\) of \(S\) generated by \(s\) is finite; the order of \(s\) is then the order of the subsemigroup \(\langle s\rangle\). A periodic semigroup is a semigroup in which all elements are periodic. \textit{G. Endimioni} [Mediterr. J. Math. 8, No. 3, 307-313 (2011; Zbl 1234.20036)] proves the following. Let \(G\) be a polycyclic group. Then every periodic subsemigroup of the endomorphism monoid \(\mathrm{End}(G)\) of \(G\) is locally finite and there is a bound on the orders of periodic elements of \(\mathrm{End}(G)\). A group \(G\) has finite Hirsch number if it has a series of finite length whose factors are infinite cyclic or locally finite, the number \(h(G)\) of infinite cyclic factors in such a series being an invariant of \(G\) called the Hirsch number of \(G\). For any group \(G\), by \(\tau(G)\) is denoted the unique maximal locally finite normal subgroup of \(G\). With this notation the first theorem proved is the following generalization of Endimioni's result: Theorem 1. Let \(G\) be a group with finite Hirsch number. Then (i) If \(\tau(G)\) satisfies the minimal condition on subgroups, then every periodic subsemigroup of \(\mathrm{End}(G)\) is locally finite. (ii) If \(\tau(G)\) is finite there is an integer \(k=k(G)\) such that for every subgroup \(H\) of \(G\) every periodic endomorphism of \(H\) has order at most \(k\). Another interesting result in this paper is: Theorem 2. Let \(\pi\) be some set of primes and let \(G\) be a torsion-free nilpotent group with a series of finite length whose factors are either infinite cyclic or \(\pi\)-groups. Set \[ J=\mathbb Z[p^{-1}\mid p\in\pi]\leq\mathbb Q. \] Then for some positive integer \(n\) the monoid \(\mathrm{End}(G)\) embeds into the multiplicative monoid of the \(n\times n\) matrix ring \(M_n(J)\). Finally the author provides an alternative proof of \textit{R. McNaughton} and \textit{Y. Zalcstein}'s theorem [J. Algebra 34, 292-299 (1975; Zbl 0302.20054)] that periodic multiplicative subsemigroups of a matrix ring over a field are locally finite and extends the latter result proving: Theorem 3. Let \(S\) be a periodic multiplicative subsemigroup of \(M_n(D)\), where \(D\) is a division ring and \(n\) a positive integer. If \(D\) is not a field assume either that periodic matrix groups over \(D\) are locally finite or that subgroups of \(S\) are locally finite. Then \(S\) is locally finite. Theorem 3 is proved, rather using techniques derived from automata theory (as in McNaughton and Zalcstein's paper [loc. cit.]), using a modification of the proof of Theorem 1.