Eva Foster

Paul C. Bell, Eva Foster, Daniel Reidenbach

We study the notion of irreducibility of semigroup morphisms. Given an alphabet $Σ$, a morphism $φ:Σ^+\rightarrowΣ^+$ is irreducible if any factorisation $φ=ψ_2\circψ_1$ can only be satisfied if $ψ_1$ or $ψ_2$ is a trivial morphism. Otherwise, $φ$ is reducible. We introduce the notion of irreducibility, characterise this property and study a number of fundamental questions on the concepts under consideration.