Why does a DFA either contain all or no words $a^k$ if it loops for $a$ in all states?

Question

I am trying to solve this particular problem from Automata Theory by Ullman, Hopcroft, it is as shown below:

Let $A$ be a $DFA$ and $a$ be a particular input symbol of $A$, such that for all states $q$ of $A$ we have $\delta(q,a)=q$.

Show that either $\left\{a\right\}^*\subseteq L(A)$ or $\left\{a\right\}^*\cap L(A)=\emptyset$.

As far as my understanding of the first part of the problem, the language accepted by $A$ is $L(A)=\left\{a, aa, aaa, aaaa, aaaa...\right\}$.

Since, $\left\{a\right\}^*$ represents strings that belong to $L(A)$ including $\varepsilon$, therefore $\left\{a\right\}^*\subseteq L(A)$ is true.

How to show that $\left\{a\right\}^*\cap L(A)=\emptyset$? Doesn't $L(A)$ represent strings generated by $\left\{a\right\}^*$? How can the intersection be $\emptyset$?

Answer 1

Hint: Suppose that $a^k \in L(A)$ for some integer $k$. Consider the initial state $s$ of $A$. From the premises it follows that $\delta(s,a^k) = s$, and since $a^k \in L(A)$, $s$ must be an accepting state. For every integer $\ell$ we have $\delta(s,a^\ell) = s$ and so $a^\ell \in L(A)$.