Monoid kernels and profinite topologies on the free Abelian group

Abstract

To each pseudovariety of Abelian groups residually containing the integers, there is naturally associated a profinite topology on any finite rank free Abelian group. We show in this paper that if the pseudovariety in question has a decidable membership problem, then one can effectively compute membership in the closure of a subgroup and, more generally, in the closure of a rational subset of such a free Abelian group. Several applications to monoid kernels and finite monoid theory are discussed.