Inverse automata and monoids and the undecidability of the cayley subgraph problem for groups

Abstract

The structure of an inverse monoid can be determined by the complete set of Schützenberger graphs of a presentation. Necessary and sufficient conditions for a collection of inverse X-graphs to be the complete set of Schützenberger graphs of some inverse monoid presentation are established and decidability results are obtained. Conditions for a single inverse X-graph to be a Schu¨tzenberger graph for some presentation are also obtained, and both problems are restricted to the case of Clifford monoids and E-unitary inverse monoids. Decidability and undecidability results are obtained for the case of finite graphs. It is also proved that the problem of embedding a finite inverse X-graph in the Cayley graph of a group is undecidable.