Numerical Semigroups That Are Not Intersections of $d$-Squashed Semigroups

http://dx.doi.org/10.4153/CMB-2009-059-4
Canad. Math. Bull. 52(2009), 598-612

  Published:2009-12-01
 Printed: Dec 2009

We say that a numerical semigroup is \emph{$d$-squashed} if it can be written in the form $$ S=\frac 1 N \langle a_1,\dots,a_d \rangle \cap \mathbb{Z}$$ for $N,a_1,\dots,a_d$ positive integers with $\gcd(a_1,\dots, a_d)=1$. Rosales and Urbano have shown that a numerical semigroup is 2-squashed if and only if it is proportionally modular. Recent works by Rosales \emph{et al.} give a concrete example of a numerical semigroup that cannot be written as an intersection of $2$-squashed semigroups. We will show the existence of infinitely many numerical semigroups that cannot be written as an intersection of $2$-squashed semigroups. We also will prove the same result for $3$-squashed semigroups. We conjecture that there are numerical semigroups that cannot be written as the intersection of $d$-squashed semigroups for any fixed $d$, and we prove some partial results towards this conjecture.