New results on the conjecture of Rhodes and on the topological conjecture

The Conjecture of Rhodes, originally called the “type II conjecture” by Rhodes, gives an algorithm to compute the kernel of a finite semigroup. This conjecture has numerous important consequences and is one of the most attractive problems on finite semigroups. It was known that the conjecture of Rhodes is a consequence of another conjecture on the finite group topology for the free monoid. In this paper, we show that the topological conjecture and the conjecture of Rhodes are both equivalent to a third conjecture and we prove this third conjecture in a number of significant particular cases.