On solving basic equations over the semiring of functional digraphs

Endowing the set of functional graphs (FGs) with the sum (disjoint union of graphs) and product (standard direct product on graphs) operations induces on FGs a structure of a commutative semiring R. The operations on R can be naturally extended to the set of univariate polynomials R[X] over R. This paper provides a polynomial time algorithm for deciding if equations of the type AX=B have solutions when A is just a single cycle and B a set of cycles of identical size. We also prove a similar complexity result for some variants of the previous equation. Final version accepted by DMTCS; added a linefeed before 'Clearly' in the before last page, as asked by the editor