This paper presents new results on the identities satisfied by the hypoplactic monoid. We show how to embed the hypoplactic monoid of any rank strictly greater than 2 (including infinite rank) into a direct product of copies of the hypoplactic monoid of rank 2. This confirms that all hypoplactic monoids of rank greater than or equal to 2 satisfy exactly the same identities. We then give a complete characterization of those identities, and prove that the variety generated by the hypoplactic monoid has finite axiomatic rank, by giving a finite basis for it.
This paper presents new results on the identities satisfied by the sylvester and Baxter monoids. We show how to embed these monoids, of any rank strictly greater than 2, into a direct product of copies of the corresponding monoid of rank 2. This confirms that all monoids of the same family, of rank greater than or equal to 2, satisfy exactly the same identities. We then give a complete characterization of those identities, and prove that the varieties generated by the sylvester and the Baxter monoids have finite axiomatic rank, by giving a finite basis for them.
We exhibit a faithful representation of the plactic monoid of every finite rank as a monoid of upper triangular matrices over the tropical semiring. This answers a question first posed by Izhakian and subsequently studied by several authors. A consequence is a proof of a conjecture of Kubat and Okni{n}ski that every plactic monoid of finite rank satisfies a non-trivial semigroup identity. In the converse direction, we show that every identity satisfied by the plactic monoid of rank $n$ is satisfied by the monoid of $n times n$ upper triangular tropical matrices. In particular this implies that the variety generated by the $3 times 3$ upper triangular tropical matrices coincides with that generated by the plactic monoid of rank $3$, answering another question of Izhakian.
We exhibit faithful representations of the hypoplactic, stalactic, taiga, sylvester, Baxter and right patience sorting monoids of each finite rank as monoids of upper triangular matrices over any semiring from a large class including the tropical semiring and fields of characteristic $0$. By analysing the image of these representations, we show that the variety generated by a single hypoplactic (respectively, stalactic or taiga) monoid of rank at least $2$ coincides with the variety generated by the natural numbers together with a fixed finite monoid $mathcal{H}$ (respectively, $mathcal{F}$) forming a proper subvariety of the variety generated by the plactic monoid of rank $2$.
We establish necessary and sufficient conditions for a semigroup identity to hold in the monoid of $ntimes n$ upper triangular tropical matrices, in terms of equivalence of certain tropical polynomials. This leads to an algorithm for checking whether such an identity holds, in time polynomial in the length of the identity and size of the alphabet. It also allows us to answer a question of Izhakian and Margolis, by showing that the identities which hold in the monoid of $2times 2$ upper triangular tropical matrices are exactly the same as those which hold in the bicyclic monoid. Our results extend to a broader class of chain structured tropical matrix semigroups; we exhibit a faithful representation of the free monogenic inverse semigroup within such a semigroup, which leads also to a representation by $3times 3$ upper triangular matrix semigroups, and a new proof of the fact that this semigroup satisfies the same identities as the bicyclic monoid.
The 6-element Brandt monoid $B_2^1$ admits a unique addition under which it becomes an additively idempotent semiring. We show that this addition is a term operation of $B_2^1$ as an inverse semigroup. As a consequence, we exhibit an easy proof that the semiring identities of $B_2^1$ are not finitely based.