Refinement monoids and adaptable separated graphs

Abstract

We define a subclass of separated graphs, the class of adaptable separated graphs, and study their associated monoids. We show that these monoids are primely generated conical refinement monoids, and we explicitly determine their associated I-systems. We also show that any finitely generated conical refinement monoid can be represented as the monoid of an adaptable separated graph. These results provide the first step toward an affirmative answer to the Realization Problem for von Neumann regular rings, in the finitely generated case.