Submonoids of groups, and group-representability of restricted relation algebras

Abstract

Marek Kuczma asked in 1980 whether for every positive integer $n,$ there exists a subsemigroup $M$ of a group $G,$ such that $G$ is equal to the $n$-fold product $M\,M^{-1} M\,M^{-1} \dots\,M^{(-1)^{n-1}},$ but not to any proper initial subproduct of this product. We answer his question affirmatively, and prove a more general result on representing a certain sort of relation algebra by subsets of a group. We also sketch several variants of the latter result.