Let $H$ be a Krull monoid with finite class group $G$ such that every class contains a prime divisor. We consider the system $\mathcal L (H)$ of all sets of lengths of $H$ and study when $\mathcal L (H)$ contains or is contained in a system $\mathcal L (H')$ of a Krull monoid $H'$ with finite class group $G'$, prime divisors in all classes and Davenport constant $\mathsf D (G')=\mathsf D (G)$. Among others, we show that if $G$ is either cyclic of order $m \ge 7$ or an elementary $2$-group of rank $m-1 \ge 6$, and $G'$ is any group which is non-isomorphic to $G$ but with Davenport constant $\mathsf D (G')=\mathsf D (G)$, then the systems $\mathcal L (H)$ and $\mathcal L (H')$ are incomparable.
Some of the fundamental notions related to sets of lengths of Krull monoids with finite class group are discussed, and a survey of recent results is given. These include the elasticity and related notions, the set of distances, and the structure theorem for sets of lengths. Several open problems are mentioned.
Transfer Krull monoids are monoids which allow a weak transfer homomorphism to a commutative Krull monoid, and hence the system of sets of lengths of a transfer Krull monoid coincides with that of the associated commutative Krull monoid. We unveil a couple of new features of the system of sets of lengths of transfer Krull monoids over finite abelian groups G, and we provide a complete description of the system for all groups G having Davenport constant D(G) = 5 (these are the smallest groups for which no such descriptions were known so far). Under reasonable algebraic finiteness assumptions, s…
We show that for every finite nonempty set L of integers greater than or equal to 2 there are a numerical monoid H and a squarefree element a $\in$ H whose set of lengths L(a) is equal to L.
Let $H$ be a Krull monoid with class group $G$ and suppose that each class contains a prime divisor. Then every element $a \in H$ has a factorization into irreducible elements, and the set $\mathsf L (a)$ of all possible factorization lengths is the set of lengths of $a$. We consider the system $\mathcal L (H) = \{ \mathsf L (a) \mid a \in H \}$ of all sets of lengths, and we characterize (in terms of the class group $G$) when $\mathcal L (H)$ is additively closed under set addition.
Let $H$ be a transfer Krull monoid over a finite ablian group $G$ (for example, rings of integers, holomorphy rings in algebraic function fields, and regular congruence monoids in these domains). Then each nonunit $a \in H$ can be written as a product of irreducible elements, say $a = u_1 \ldots u_k$, and the number of factors $k$ is called the length of the factorization. The set $\mathsf L (a)$ of all possible factorization lengths is the set of lengths of $a$. It is classical that the system $\mathcal L (H) = \{ \mathsf L (a) \mid a \in H \}$ of all sets of lengths depends only on the group…
Let H be a Krull monoid with finite class group G and suppose that every class contains a prime divisor. Then sets of lengths in H have a well-defined structure which just depends on the class group G. With methods from additive combinatorics we establish a characterization of those class groups G guaranteeing that all sets of lengths are (almost) arithmetical progressions.
In this paper we study the system of sets of lengths of non-finitely generated atomic Puiseux monoids (a Puiseux monoid is an additive submonoid of $\mathbb{Q}_{\ge 0}$). We begin by presenting a BF-monoid $M$ with full system of sets of lengths, which means that for each subset $S$ of $\mathbb{Z}_{\ge 2}$ there exists an element $x \in M$ whose set of lengths $\mathsf{L}(x)$ is $S$. It is well known that systems of sets of lengths do not characterize numerical monoids. Here, we prove that systems of sets of lengths do not characterize non-finitely generated atomic Puiseux monoids. In a recent…
A positive integer k is a length of a polynomial if that polynomial factors into a product of k irreducible polynomials. We find the set of lengths of polynomials of the form x^n in R[x], where (R, m) is an Artinian local ring with m^2 = 0.
Let $\mathcal L^*$ be a family of finite subsets of $\mathbb N_0$ having the following properties. (a). $\{0\}, \{1\} \in \mathcal L^*$ and all other sets of $\mathcal L^*$ lie in $\mathbb N_{\ge 2}$. (b). If $L_1, L_2 \in \mathcal L^*$, then the sumset $L_1 + L_2 \in \mathcal L^*$. We show that there is a Dedekind domain $D$ whose system of sets of lengths equals $\mathcal L^*$.
Let $H$ be a Krull monoid with finite class group $G$ such that every class contains a prime divisor. Then every non-unit $a \in H$ can be written as a finite product of atoms, say $a=u_1 \cdot \ldots \cdot u_k$. The set $\mathsf L (a)$ of all possible factorization lengths $k$ is called the set of lengths of $a$. There is a constant $M \in \mathbb N$ such that all sets of lengths are almost arithmetical multiprogressions with bound $M$ and with difference $d \in Δ^* (H)$, where $Δ^* (H)$ denotes the set of minimal distances of $H$. We study the structure of $Δ^* (H)$ and establish a character…
For an element $a$ of a monoid $H$, its set of lengths $\mathsf L (a) \subset \mathbb N$ is the set of all positive integers $k$ for which there is a factorization $a=u_1 \cdot \ldots \cdot u_k$ into $k$ atoms. We study the system $\mathcal L (H) = \{\mathsf L (a) \mid a \in H \}$ with a focus on the unions $\mathcal U_k (H) \subset \mathbb N$ which are the unions of all sets of lengths containing a given $k \in \mathbb N$. The Structure Theorem for Unions -- stating that for all sufficiently large $k$, the sets $\mathcal U_k (H)$ are almost arithmetical progressions with the same difference a…
We introduce a new invariant describing the structure of sets of lengths in atomic monoids and domains. For an atomic monoid $H$, let $Δ_ρ (H)$ be the set of all positive integers $d$ which occur as differences of arbitrarily long arithmetical progressions contained in sets of lengths having maximal elasticity $ρ(H)$. We study $Δ_ρ (H)$ for transfer Krull monoids of finite type (including commutative Krull domains with finite class group) with methods from additive combinatorics, and also for a class of weakly Krull domains (including orders in algebraic number fields) for which we use ideal t…
Let $H$ be a Krull monoid with class group $G$ such that every class contains a prime divisor. Then every nonunit $a \in H$ can be written as a finite product of irreducible elements. If $a=u\_1 \cdot \ldots \cdot u\_k$, with irreducibles $u\_1, \ldots u\_k \in H$, then $k$ is called the length of the factorization and the set $\mathsf L (a)$ of all possible $k$ is called the set of lengths of $a$. It is well-known that the system $\mathcal L (H) = \{\mathsf L (a) \mid a \in H \}$ depends only on the class group $G$. In the present paper we study the inverse question asking whether or not the …
In this paper, we study some of the factorization aspects of rational multicyclic monoids, that is, additive submonoids of the nonnegative rational numbers generated by multiple geometric sequences. In particular, we provide a complete description of the rational multicyclic monoids $M$ that are hereditarily atomic (i.e., every submonoid of $M$ is atomic). Additionally, we show that the sets of lengths of certain rational multicyclic monoids are finite unions of multidimensional arithmetic progressions, while their unions satisfy the Structure Theorem for Unions of Sets of Lengths. Finally, we…
Let $H$ be an atomic monoid. For $x \in H$, let $\mathsf{L}(x)$ denote the set of all possible lengths of factorizations of $x$ into irreducibles. The system of sets of lengths of $H$ is the set $\mathcal{L}(H) = \{\mathsf{L}(x) \mid x \in H\}$. On the other hand, the elasticity of $x$, denoted by $ρ(x)$, is the quotient $\sup \mathsf{L}(x)/\inf \mathsf{L}(x)$ and the elasticity of $H$ is the supremum of the set $\{ρ(x) \mid x \in H\}$. The system of sets of lengths and the elasticity of $H$ both measure how far is $H$ from being half-factorial, i.e., $|\mathsf{L}(x)| = 1$ for each $x \in H$. …
Let $D$ be a Dedekind domain with infinitely many maximal ideals, all of finite index, and $K$ its quotient field. Let $\operatorname{Int}(D) = \{f\in K[x] \mid f(D) \subseteq D\}$ be the ring of integer-valued polynomials on $D$. Given any finite multiset $\{k_1, \ldots, k_n\}$ of integers greater than $1$, we construct a polynomial in $\operatorname{Int}(D)$ which has exactly $n$ essentially different factorizations into irreducibles in $\operatorname{Int}(D)$, the lengths of these factorizations being $k_1$, \ldots, $k_n$. We also show that there is no transfer homomorphism from the multipl…
Let $S=\langle a_1,\ldots,a_p\rangle$ be a numerical semigroup, $s\in S$ and ${\sf z}(s)$ its set of factorizations. The set of length is denoted by ${\mathcal L}(s)=\{{\tt L}(x_1,\dots,x_p)\mid (x_1,\dots,x_p)\in{\sf Z}(s)\}$ where ${\tt L}(x_1,\dots,x_p)=x_1+\ldots+x_p$. From these definitions, the following sets can be defined ${\textsf W}(n)=\{s\in S\mid \exists x\in{\sf z}(s) \textrm{ such that } {\tt{L}}(x)=n\}$, $ν(n)=\cup_{s\in {\textsf W}(n)} {\mathcal L}(s)=\{l_1<l_2<\ldots< l_r\}$ and $Δν(n)=\{l_2-l_1,\ldots,l_r-l_{r-1}\}$. In this paper, we prove that the set $Δν(S)=\cup_{n\in{\mat…
This is a survey on factorization theory. We discuss finitely generated monoids (including affine monoids), primary monoids (including numerical monoids), power sets with set addition, Krull monoids and their various generalizations, and the multiplicative monoids of domains (including Krull domains, rings of integer-valued polynomials, orders in algebraic number fields) and of their ideals. We offer examples for all these classes of monoids and discuss their main arithmetical finiteness properties. These describe the structure of their sets of lengths, of the unions of sets of lengths, and th…
Numerical monoids (cofinite, additive submonoids of the non-negative integers) arise frequently in additive combinatorics, and have recently been studied in the context of factorization theory. Arithmetical numerical monoids, which are minimally generated by arithmetic sequences, are particularly well-behaved, admitting closed forms for many invariants that are difficult to compute in the general case. In~this paper, we answer the question "when does omitting generators from an arithmetical numerical monoid $S$ preserve its (well-understood) set of length sets and/or Frobenius number?" in two …
