Abstract:
An answer is given to the question of M. Lohrey and B. Steinberg on
decidability of the submonoid membership problem for a finitely generated nilpotent group. Namely, a finitely generated submonoid of a free nilpotent group of class $2$ of sufficiently large rank $r$ is constructed,
for which the membership problem is algorithmically undecidable. This implies the existence of a submonoid with
similar property in any free nilpotent group of class $l \geqslant 2$ of rank $r$. The proof is based on the undecidability of Hilbert's tenth problem.
Keywords:submonoid membership problem, nilpotent group, Hilbert's tenth problem, interpretability of equations in groups.