A combinatorial property of ideals in free profinite monoids. (Q964524)

This very short paper proves the following main result. Suppose that \(\mathbf V\) is a pseudovariety of finite monoids which is closed under Mal'cev product on the left by the pseudovariety of all finite aperiodic monoids and let \(F\) be a free pro-\(\mathbf V\) monoid on a profinite set. If a product of \(m\) elements of \(F\) belongs to a product of \(n\geq m\) ideals of \(F\), then at least one of the elements belongs to one of the ideals. Several interesting applications are drawn. For instance, every idempotent ideal of \(F\) is prime and, in particular, regular elements generate prime ideals so that the minimal ideal is prime. The latter is a particular case, with a much simpler proof, of a result due to \textit{M. V. Volkov} and the reviewer [Int. J. Algebra Comput. 16, No. 2, 221-258 (2006; Zbl 1186.20040)]. Another application is that in every subsemigroup of \(F\) which is a band, the principal ideals form a chain.