The paint pot problem and common multiples in monoids (Q7025946)

Illustrated by a problem on paint pots that is easy to understand but hard to solve, a main goal of this paper is to investigate for which graphs the corresponding generalized braid monoid has common right multiples, in a self-contained way that also applies to monoids of other formats. As one result, the authors characterize generalized braid monoids represented by undirected graphs, being a subclass of Artin-Tits monoids. Stated in other words, the authors investigate to which graphs the old Garside result stating that braid monoids have the property of common right multiples, generalizes. This characterization also follows from old results on Coxeter groups and the connection between finiteness of Coxeter groups and common right multiples in Artin-Tits monoids. The main new contribution is a technique to prove that the property of common right multiples does not hold, by finding a particular model, in examples all being finite.