Scalar ambiguity and freeness in matrix semigroups over bounded languages

Abstract

There has been much research into freeness properties of finitely generated matrix semigroups under various constraints, mainly related to the dimensions of the generator matrices and the semiring over which the matrices are defined. A recent paper has also investigated freeness properties of matrices within a bounded language of matrices, which are of the form M1M2 · · ·Mk ⊆ Fn×n for some semiring F [9]. Most freeness problems have been shown to be undecidable starting from dimension three, even for upper-triangular matrices over the natural numbers. There are many open problems still remaining in dimension two. We introduce a notion of freeness and ambiguity for scalar reachability problems in matrix semigroups and bounded languages of matrices. Scalar reachability concerns the set {ρTMτ|M ∈ S}, where ρ, τ ∈ Fn are vectors and S is a finitely generated matrix semigroup. Ambiguity and freeness problems are defined in terms of uniqueness of factorizations leading to each scalar. We show various undecidability results.