Ramsey monoids

Abstract

Recently, Solecki introduced the notion of Ramsey monoid to produce a common generalization to theorems such as Hindman's theorem, Carlson's theorem, and Gowers' FIN$_k$ theorem. He proved that an entire class of finite monoids is Ramsey. Here we improve this result, enlarging this class and finding a simple algebraic characterization of finite Ramsey monoids. We extend in a similar way a result of Solecki regarding a second class of monoids connected to the Furstenberg-Katznelson Ramsey Theorem. The results obtained suggest a possible connection with Schützenberger's theorem and finite automata theory.