Generators and relations for subsemigroups via boundaries in Cayley graphs

Abstract

Given a finitely generated semigroup S and subsemigroup T of S we define the notion of the boundary of T in S which, intuitively, describes the position of T inside the left and right Cayley graphs of S. We prove that if S is finitely generated and T has a finite boundary in S then T is finitely generated. We also prove that if S is finitely presented and T has a finite boundary in S then T is finitely presented. Several corollaries and examples are given.