Natural Monoids and Non-commutative Arithmetics

Abstract

We introduce several classes of monoids satisfying up to five axioms and establish basic theories on their arithmetics. The one satisfying all the axioms is named natural monoid. Two typical examples are 1) the monoid $\mathbb{N}$ of natural numbers in the group of positive rationals and 2) a certain monoid $\mathbb{S}$ in one of Thompson's groups. The latter one is non-abelian, which serves as an important example for non-commutative arithmetics. Defining primes in a non-abelian monoid $S$ is highly non-trivial, which relies on a concept we called `castling'. Three types of castlings are essential to grasp the arithmetics on $S$. Multiplicative and completely multiplicative functions are defined. In particular, M\"obius function is multiplicative, and Liouville function on a natural monoid is completely multiplicative. The divisor function has a sub-multiplicative property, which induces a non-trivial quantity $\tau_0(u)=\lim\nolimits_{n\rightarrow \infty}(\tau(u^n))^{1/n}$ in a non-abelian monoid $S$. Moreover, the quantity $\c{C}(S)=\sup\nolimits_{1\neq u\in S}\tau_0(u)/\tau(u)$ describes the complexity for castlings in $S$. We show that $\c{C}(\mathbb{N})=1/2$ and $\c{C}(\mathbb{S})=1$. The reduced $C^\ast$-algebra of $S$, on which a particular trace can be defined, is also studied. Furthermore, we prove that a natural monoid having finitely many primes is amenable.