San Diego State University Mathematics Research Experience for Undergraduates

2014 Project: Arithmetic of Numerical Semigroups

The general area of study will be Number Theory, specifically Numerical Semigroups. A numerical semigroup is an additively closed subset of the nonnegative integers, such as {0,3,5,6,8,9,10,11,...}. We are concerned with arithmetic properties, such as what the irreducible elements are (3,5 in this example).

Program Director: Vadim Ponomarenko
Dr. Ponomarenko has been directing undergraduate and REU research for over a decade. Most REU participants he has worked with have been coauthors on at least one paper as a result of this collaboration.

Technical Consultant: Scott Chapman Technical Consultant: Pedro Garcia-Sanchez
Dr. Chapman has been involved with REU research for even longer than Dr. Ponomarenko. Since January 2012 he has been serving as the Editor-in-Chief of the American Mathematical Monthly. Dr. Garcia-Sanchez teaches at the Universidad de Granada (Spain). He has published extensively on numerical semigroups, commutative monoids, and nonunique factorization invariants.

Projects from previous years: 2007, 2008, 2009, 2012, 2013