Submonoids of groups, and group-representability of restricted relation algebras

Abstract

Marek Kuczma asked in 1980 whether for every positive integer $n,$ there exists a subsemigroup $M$ of a group $G,$ such that $G$ is equal to the $n$-fold product $M{M}^{-1}M{M}^{-1}\dots M^{(-1{)}^{n-1}},$ but not to any proper initial subproduct of this product. We answer his question affirmatively, and prove a more general result on representing a certain sort of relation algebra by subsets of a group. We also sketch several variants of the latter result.

15pp. Change from previous version: example added in which $M$ is finitely generated (new section 7.2)