Tilings and Submonoids of Metabelian Groups

Abstract

In this paper we show that membership in finitely generated submonoids is undecidable for the free metabelian group of rank 2 and for the wreath product $\mathbb Z\wr (\mathbb Z\times \mathbb Z)$. We also show that subsemimodule membership is undecidable for finite rank free $(\mathbb Z\times \mathbb Z)$-modules. The proof involves an encoding of Turing machines via tilings. We also show that rational subset membership is undecidable for two-dimensional lamplighter groups.