Automaton semigroup constructions. (Q744860)

In recent years, as the authors note in the introduction, ``the notion of automaton semigroup has emerged as a natural generalization of automaton group'' [see \textit{A. J. Cain}, Theor. Comput. Sci. 410, No. 47-49, 5022-5038 (2009; Zbl 1194.68133); \textit{V. Maltcev}, Int. J. Algebra Comput. 19, No. 1, 79-95 (2009; Zbl 1188.20068)]. As the authors write in the abstract ``The aim of paper is to investigate whether the class of automaton semigroups is closed under certain semigroup constructions''. In this paper it is proved that the free product of two automaton semigroups that contain left identities is again an automaton semigroup. The class of automaton semigroups is closed under the combined operation of ``free product followed by adjoining an identity''. There are some similar results. The authors state two conjectures: 1) there exist two finite semigroups \(S\) and \(T\) such that their free product is not an automaton semigroup; 2) a wreath product of an automaton monoid and a finite monoid is not necessarily an automaton monoid.