Factorisation in Topological Monoids

Jan Snellman

Published 1999-02-23, updated 2001-09-19Version 3

The aim of this paper is sketch a theory of divisibility and factorisation in topological monoids, where finite products are replaced by convergent products. The algebraic case can then be viewed as the special case of discretely topologised topological monoids. In particular, we define the topological factorisation monoid, a generalisation of the factorisation monoid for algebraic monoids, and show that it is always topologically factorial: any element can be uniquely written as a convergent product of irreducible elements. We give some sufficient conditions for a topological monoid to be topologically factorial.