Uniquely presented finitely generated commutative monoids

Abstract

A finitely generated commutative monoid is uniquely presented if it has a unique minimal presentation. We give necessary and sufficient conditions for finitely generated, combinatorially finite, cancellative, commutative monoids to be uniquely presented. We use the concept of gluing to construct commutative monoids with this property. Finally, for some relevant families of numerical semigroups we describe the elements that are uniquely presented. © 2010 by Pacific Journal of Mathematics.