Let $\mathcal S \subseteq \mathbb Z^m \oplus T$ be a finitely generated and reduced monoid. In this paper we develop a general strategy to study the set of elements in $\mathcal S$ having at least two factorizations of the same length, namely the ideal $\mathcal L_{\mathcal S}$. To this end, we work with a certain (lattice) ideal associated to the monoid $\mathcal S$. Our study can be seen as a new approach generalizing \cite{chapman:2011}, which only studies the case of numerical semigroups. When $\mathcal S$ is a numerical semigroup we give three main results: (1) we compute explicitly a set of generators of the ideal $\mathcal L_{\mathcal S}$ when $\mathcal S$ is minimally generated by an almost arithmetic sequence; (2) we provide an infinite family of numerical semigroups such that $\mathcal L_{\mathcal S}$ is a principal ideal; (3) we classify the computational problem of determining the largest integer not in $\mathcal L_{\mathcal S}$ as an $\mathcal{NP}$-hard problem.
Nonunique factorization in commutative monoids is often studied using factorization invariants, which assign to each monoid element a quantity determined by the factorization structure. For numerical monoids (co-finite, additive submonoids of the natural numbers), several factorization invariants have received much attention in the recent literature. In this survey article, we give an overview of the length set, elasticity, delta set, $ω$-primality, and catenary degree invariants in the setting of numerical monoids. For each invariant, we present current major results in the literature and ide…
We provide a characterization of the positive monoids (i.e., additive submonoids of the nonnegative real numbers) that satisfy the finite factorization property. As a result, we establish that positive monoids with well-ordered generating sets satisfy the finite factorization property, while positive monoids with co-well-ordered generating sets satisfy this property if and only if they satisfy the bounded factorization property.
We use the Chicken McNugget monoid to demonstrate various factorization properties related to relations and chains of factorizations. We study in depth the catenary and tame degrees of this monoid.
In this paper, we study various factorization invariants of arithmetical congruence monoids. The invariants we investigate are the catenary degree, a measure of the maximum distance between any two factorizations of the same element, the length density, which describes the distribution of the factorization lengths of an element, and the omega primality, which measures how far an element is from being prime.
In this paper we study the concept of radical factorization in the context of abstract ideal theory in order to obtain a unified approach to the theory of factorization into radical ideals and elements in the literature of commutative rings, monoids and ideal systems. Using this approach we derive new characterizations of classes of rings whose ideals are a product of radical ideals, and we obtain also similar characterizations for classes of ideal systems in monoids and star ideals in integral domains.
A Puiseux monoid is an additive submonoid of the nonnegative cone of rational numbers. Although Puiseux monoids are torsion-free rank-one monoids, their atomic structure is rich and highly complex. For this reason, they have been important objects to construct crucial examples in commutative algebra and factorization theory. In 1974 Anne Grams used a Puiseux monoid to construct the first example of an atomic domain not satisfying the ACCP, disproving Cohn's conjecture that every atomic domain satisfies the ACCP. Even recently, Jim Coykendall and Felix Gotti have used Puiseux monoids to constru…
Studying the factorization theory of numerical monoids relies on understanding several important factorization invariants, including length sets, delta sets, and $ω$-primality. While progress in this field has been accelerated by the use of computer algebra systems, many existing algorithms are computationally infeasible for numerical monoids with several irreducible elements. In this paper, we present dynamic algorithms for the factorization set, length set, delta set, and $ω$-primality in numerical monoids and demonstrate that these algorithms give significant improvements in runtime and mem…
In this paper we investigate the concept of radical factorization with respect to finitary ideal systems of cancellative monoids. We present new characterizations for r-almost Dedekind r-SP-monoids and provide specific descriptions of t-almost Dedekind t-SP-monoids and w-SP-monoids. We show that a monoid is a w-SP-monoid if and only if the radical of every nontrivial principal ideal is t-invertible. We characterize when the monoid ring is a w-SP-domain and describe when the *-Nagata ring is an SP-domain for a star operation * of finite type.
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…
We study some of the factorization invariants of the class of Puiseux monoids generated by geometric sequences, and we compare and contrast them with the known results for numerical monoids generated by arithmetic sequences. The class we study consists of all atomic monoids of the form $S_r := \langle r^n \mid n \in \mathbb{N}_0 \rangle,$ where $r$ is a positive rational. As the atomic monoids $S_r$ are nicely generated, we are able to give detailed descriptions of many of their factorization invariants. One distinguishing characteristic of $S_r$ is that all its sets of lengths are arithmetic …
A Puiseux monoid is an additive submonoid of the real line consisting of rationals. We say that a Puiseux monoid is reciprocal if it can be generated by the reciprocals of the terms of a strictly increasing sequence of pairwise relatively primes positive integers. We say that a commutative and cancellative (additive) monoid is atomic if every non-invertible element $x$ can be written as a sum of irreducibles. The number of irreducibles in this sum is called a length of $x$. In this paper, we identify and investigate generalized classes of reciprocal Puiseux monoids that are atomic. Moreover, f…
Let $M$ be an atomic monoid and let $x$ be a non-unit element of $M$. The elasticity of $x$, denoted by $ρ(x)$, is the ratio of its largest factorization length to its shortest factorization length, and it measures how far is $x$ from having a unique factorization. The elasticity $ρ(M)$ of $M$ is the supremum of the elasticities of all non-unit elements of $M$. The monoid $M$ has accepted elasticity if $ρ(M) = ρ(m)$ for some $m \in M$. In this paper, we study the elasticity of Puiseux monoids (i.e., additive submonoids of $\mathbb{Q}_{\ge 0}$). First, we characterize the Puiseux monoids $M$ ha…
The Huneke-Wiegand conjecture has prompted much recent research in Commutative Algebra. In studying this conjecture for certain classes of rings, García-Sánchez and Leamer construct a monoid S_Γ^s whose elements correspond to arithmetic sequences in a numerical monoid Γof step size s. These monoids, which we call Leamer monoids, possess a very interesting factorization theory that is significantly different from the numerical monoids from which they are derived. In this paper, we offer much of the foundational theory of Leamer monoids, including an analysis of their atomic structure, and inves…
For a positive real $α$, we can consider the additive submonoid $M$ of the real line that is generated by the nonnegative powers of $α$. When $α$ is transcendental, $M$ is a unique factorization monoid. However, when $α$ is algebraic, $M$ may not be atomic, and even when $M$ is atomic, it may contain elements having more than one factorization (i.e., decomposition as a sum of irreducibles). The main purpose of this paper is to study the phenomenon of multiple factorizations inside $M$. When $α$ is algebraic but not rational, the arithmetic of factorizations in $M$ is highly interesting and com…
An atomic monoid is length-factorial if each two distinct factorizations of any element have distinct factorization lengths. We provide a characterization of length-factorial Krull monoids in terms of their class groups and the distribution of prime divisors in the classes.
Given a Noetherian ring $A$, the collection of all integrally closed ideals in $A$ which contain a nonzerodivisor, denoted $ic(A)$, forms a cancellative monoid under the operation $I*J=\overline{IJ}$, the integral closure of the product. The monoid is torsion-free and atomic -- every integrally closed ideal in $A$ containing a nonzerodivisor can be factored in this $*$-product into $*$-irreducible integrally closed ideals. Restricting to the case where $A$ is a polynomial ring and the ideals in question are monomial, we show that there is a surjective homomorphism from the Integral Polytope Gr…
Additive submonoids of $\mathbb{Q}_{\ge 0}$, also known as Puiseux monoids, are not unique factorization monoids (UFMs) in general. Indeed, the only unique factorization Puiseux monoids are those generated by one element. However, even if a Puiseux monoid is not a UFM, it may contain nonzero elements having exactly one factorization. We call such elements molecules. Molecules were first investigated by W. Narkiewicz in the context of algebraic number theory. More recently, F. Gotti and the first author studied molecules in the context of Puiseux monoids. Here we address some aspects related to…
For a positive real number $α$, let $\mathbb{N}_0[α,α^{-1}]$ be the semiring of all real numbers $f(α)$ for $f(x)$ lying in $\mathbb{N}_0[x,x^{-1}]$, which is the semiring of all Laurent polynomials over the set of nonnegative integers $\mathbb{N}_0$. In this paper, we study various factorization properties of the additive structure of $\mathbb{N}_0[α, α^{-1}]$. We characterize when $\mathbb{N}_0[α, α^{-1}]$ is atomic. Then we characterize when $\mathbb{N}_0[α, α^{-1}]$ satisfies the ascending chain condition on principal ideals in terms of certain well-studied factorization properties. Finall…
For an integral domain $R$ and a commutative cancellative monoid $M$, the ring consisting of all polynomial expressions with coefficients in $R$ and exponents in $M$ is called the monoid ring of $M$ over $R$. An integral domain is called atomic if every nonzero nonunit element can be written as a product of irreducibles. In the investigation of the atomicity of integral domains, the building blocks are the irreducible elements. Thus, tools to prove irreducibility are crucial to study atomicity. In the first part of this paper, we extend Gauss's Lemma and Eisenstein's Criterion from polynomial …
Recent investigations on the catenary degrees of numerical monoids have demonstrated that this invariant is a powerful tool in understanding the factorization theory of this class of monoids. Although useful, the catenary degree is largely not sensitive to the lengths of factorizations of an element. In this paper, we study the monotone catenary degree of numerical monoids, which is a variant of catenary degree that requires chains run through factorization lengths monotonically. In general, the monotone catenary is greater than or equal to the catenary degree. We begin by providing an importa…
An atomic monoid $M$ is called a length-factorial monoid (or an other-half-factorial monoid) if for each non-invertible element $x \in M$ no two distinct factorizations of $x$ have the same length. The notion of length-factoriality was introduced by Coykendall and Smith in 2011 as a dual of the well-studied notion of half-factoriality. They proved that in the setting of integral domains, length-factoriality can be taken as an alternative definition of a unique factorization domain. However, being a length-factorial monoid is in general weaker than being a factorial monoid (i.e., a unique facto…
We extend a few fundamental aspects of the classical theory of non-unique factorization, as presented in Geroldinger and Halter-Koch's 2006 monograph on the subject, to a non-commutative and non-cancellative setting, in the same spirit of Baeth and Smertnig's work on the factorization theory of non-commutative, but cancellative monoids [J. Algebra 441 (2015), 475-551]. Then, we bring in power monoids and, applying the abstract machinery developed in the first part, we undertake the study of their arithmetic. More in particular, let $H$ be a multiplicatively written monoid. The set $\mathcal P_…
Let $H^\times$ be the group of units of a multiplicatively written monoid $H$. We say $H$ is acyclic if $xyz \ne y$ for all $x, y, z \in H$ with $x \notin H^\times$ or $z \notin H^\times$; unit-cancellative if $yx \ne x \ne xy$ for all $x, y \in H$ with $y \notin H^\times$; f.g.u. if there is a finite set $A \subseteq H$ such that every non-unit of $H$ is a finite product of elements of the form $uav$ with $u, v \in H^\times$ and $a \in A$; l.f.g.u. if, for each $x \in H$, the smallest divisor-closed submonoid of $H$ containing $x$ is f.g.u; and atomic if every non-unit can be written as a fin…
We combine the language of monoids with the language of preorders so as to refine some fundamental aspects of the classical theory of factorization and prove an abstract factorization theorem with a variety of applications. In particular, we obtain a generalization, from cancellative to Dedekind-finite (commutative or non-commutative) monoids, of a classical theorem on "atomic factorizations" that traces back to the work of P.M. Cohn in the 1960s; recover a theorem of D.D. Anderson and S. Valdes-Leon on "irreducible factorizations" in commutative rings; improve on a theorem of A.A. Antoniou an…
In an additive factorial monoid each element can be represented as a linear combination of irreducible elements (atoms) with uniquely determined coefficients running over all natural numbers. In this paper we develop for a wide class of non-factorial monoids a concept of stratification for atoms which allows to represent each element as a linear combination of atoms where the coefficients are uniquely determined when restricted in a particular way. This wide class includes inside factorial monoids and in particular simplicial affine semigroups. In the latter case the question of uniqueness is …
In this paper, we study factorizations in the additive monoids of positive algebraic valuations $\mathbb{N}_0[α]$ of the semiring of polynomials $\mathbb{N}_0[X]$ using a methodology introduced by D. D. Anderson, D. F. Anderson, and M. Zafrullah in 1990. A cancellative commutative monoid is atomic if every non-invertible element factors into irreducibles. We begin by determining when $\mathbb{N}_0[α]$ is atomic, and we give an explicit description of its set of irreducibles. An atomic monoid is a finite factorization monoid (FFM) if every element has only finitely many factorizations (up to or…
We introduce and investigate the category of factorization of a multiplicative, commutative, cancellative, pre-ordered monoid $A$, which we denote $\mathcal{F}(A)$. The objects of $\mathcal{F}(A)$ are factorizations of elements of $A$, and the morphisms in $\mathcal{F}(A)$ encode combinatorial similarities and differences between the factorizations. We pay particular attention to the divisibility pre-order and to the monoid $A=D\setminus\{0\}$ where $D$ is an integral domain. Among other results, we show that $\mathcal{F}(A)$ is a symmetric and strict monoidal category with weak equivalences a…
We investigate non-unique factorization of polynomials in Z_{p^n}[x] into irreducibles. As a Noetherian ring whose zero-divisors are contained in the Jacobson radical, Z_{p^n}[x] is atomic. We reduce the question of factoring arbitrary non-zero polynomials into irreducibles to the problem of factoring monic polynomials into monic irreducibles. The multiplicative monoid of monic polynomials of Z_{p^n}[x] is a direct sum of monoids corresponding to irreducible polynomials in Z_p[x], and we show that each of these monoids has infinite elasticity. Moreover, for every positive integer m, there exis…
Let $H$ be a Krull monoid with infinite cyclic class group $G$ and let $G_P \subset G$ denote the set of classes containing prime divisors. We study under which conditions on $G_P$ some of the main finiteness properties of factorization theory--such as local tameness, the finiteness and rationality of the elasticity, the structure theorem for sets of lengths, the finiteness of the catenary degree, and the existence of monotone and of near monotone chains of factorizations--hold in $H$. In many cases, we derive explicit characterizations.
The catenary degree of an element $n$ of a cancellative commutative monoid $S$ is a nonnegative integer measuring the distance between the irreducible factorizations of $n$. The catenary degree of the monoid $S$, defined as the supremum over all catenary degrees occurring in $S$, has been heavily studied as an invariant of nonunique factorization. In this paper, we investigate the set $\mathsf C(S)$ of catenary degrees achieved by elements of $S$ as a factorization invariant, focusing on the case where $S$ in finitely generated (where $\mathsf C(S)$ is known to be finite). Answering an open qu…
A (not necessarily commutative) Krull monoid---as introduced by Wauters---is defined as a completely integrally closed monoid satisfying the ascending chain condition on divisorial two-sided ideals. We study the structure of these Krull monoids, both with ideal theoretic and with divisor theoretic methods. Among others we characterize normalizing Krull monoids by divisor theories. Based on these results we give a criterion for a Krull monoid to be a bounded factorization monoid, and we provide arithmetical finiteness results in case of normalizing Krull monoids with finite Davenport constant.
A Puiseux monoid is an additive submonoid of the nonnegative cone of the rational numbers. We say that a Puiseux monoid $M$ is exponential provided that there exist a positive rational $r$ and a set $S$ consisting of nonnegative integers, which contains $0$, such that $M$ is generated by the set $\{r^s \mid s \in S\}$. If $M$ is multiplicatively closed then we say that $M$ is an exponential Puiseux semiring. Here we study the atomic properties of exponential Puiseux monoids and semirings. First, we characterize atomic exponential Puiseux monoids, and we prove that the finite factorization prop…
A Puiseux monoid is an additive submonoid of the nonnegative rational numbers. If $M$ is a Puiseux monoid, then the question of whether each non-invertible element of $M$ can be written as a sum of irreducible elements (that is, $M$ is atomic) is surprisingly difficult. Although various techniques have been developed over the past few years to identify subclasses of Puiseux monoids that are atomic, no general characterization of such monoids is known. Here we survey some of the most relevant aspects related to the atomicity of Puiseux monoids. We provide characterizations of when $M$ is finite…
Let $G$ be a finite group. A finite unordered sequence $S = g_1 \boldsymbol{\cdot} \ldots \boldsymbol{\cdot} g_{\ell}$ of terms from $G$, where repetition is allowed, is a product-one sequence if its terms can be ordered such that their product equals $1_G$, the identity element of the group. As usual, we consider sequences as elements of the free abelian monoid $\mathcal F (G)$ with basis $G$, and we study the submonoid $\mathcal B (G) \subset \mathcal F (G)$ of all product-one sequences. This is a finitely generated C-monoid, which is a Krull monoid if and only if $G$ is abelian. In case of …
Arithmetical invariants---such as sets of lengths, catenary and tame degrees---describe the non-uniqueness of factorizations in atomic monoids. We study these arithmetical invariants by the monoid of relations and by presentations of the involved monoids. The abstract results will be applied to numerical monoids and to Krull monoids.
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 $D$ 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…
If $M$ is an atomic monoid and $x$ is a nonzero non-unit element of $M$, then the set of lengths $\mathsf{L}(x)$ of $x$ is the set of all possible lengths of factorizations of $x$, where the length of a factorization is the number of irreducible factors (counting repetitions). In a recent paper, F. Gotti and C. O'Neil studied the sets of elasticities $\mathcal{R}(P) := \{\sup \mathsf{L}(x)/\inf \mathsf{L}(x) : x \in P\}$ of Puiseux monoids $P$. Here we take this study a step forward and explore the local $k$-elasticities of the same class of monoids. We find conditions under which Puiseux mono…
We discuss various square-free factorizations in monoids in the context of: atomicity, ascending chain condition for principal ideals, decomposition, and a greatest common divisor property. Moreover, we obtain a full characterization of submonoids of factorial monoids in which all square-free elements of a submonoid are square-free in a monoid. We also present factorial properties implying that all atoms of a submonoid are square-free in a monoid.
A numerical monoid is a cofinite additive submonoid of the nonnegative integers, while a Puiseux monoid is an additive submonoid of the nonnegative cone of the rational numbers. Using that a Puiseux monoid is an increasing union of copies of numerical monoids, we prove that some of the factorization invariants of these two classes of monoids are related through a limiting process. This allows us to extend results from numerical to Puiseux monoids. We illustrate the versatility of this technique by recovering various known results about Puiseux monoids.
Supertropical monoids are a structure slightly more general than the supertropical semirings, which have been introduced and used by the first and the third authors for refinements of tropical geometry and matrix theory in [IR1]-[IR3], and then studied by us in a systematic way in [IKR1]-[IKR3] in connection with "supervaluations". In the present paper we establish a category $\STROP_m$ of supertropical monoids by choosing as morphisms the "transmissions", defined in the same way as done in [IKR1] for supertropical semirings. The previously investigated category $STROP$ of supertropical semiri…
Call a directed partially ordered cancellative divisibility monoid $M$ a Riesz monoid if for all $x,y_{1},y_{2}\geq 0$ in $M,$ $x\leq y_{1}+y_{2}\Rightarrow x=x_{1}+x_{2}$ where $0\leq x_{i}\leq y_{i}$. We explore the necessary and sufficient conditions under which a Riesz monoid $% M $ with $M^{+}=\{x\geq 0|x\in M\}=M$ generates a Riesz group and indicate some applications. We call a directed p.o. monoid $M$ $Π$-pre-Riesz if $% M^{+}=M$ and for all $x_{1},x_{2},...,x_{n}\in M$, $% glb(x_{1},x_{2},...,x_{n})=0$ or there is $r\in Π$ such that $0<r\leq x_{1},x_{2},...,x_{n},$ for some subset $Π$…
We study direct-sum decompositions of torsion-free, finitely generated modules over a (commutative) Bass ring $R$ through the factorization theory of the corresponding monoid $T(R)$. Results of Levy-Wiegand and Levy-Odenthal together with a study of the local case yield an explicit description of $T(R)$. The monoid is typically neither factorial nor cancellative. Nevertheless, we construct a transfer homomorphism to a monoid of graph agglomerations--a natural class of monoids serving as combinatorial models for the factorization theory of $T(R)$. As a consequence, the monoid $T(R)$ is transfer…
Factoring ideals in integral domains is a central topic in multiplicative ideal theory. In the present paper we study monoids of ideals and consider factorizations of ideals into multiplicatively irreducible ideals. The focus is on the monoid of nonzero divisorial ideals and on the monoid of $v$-invertible divisorial ideals in weakly Krull Mori domains. Under suitable algebraic finiteness conditions we establish arithmetical finiteness results, in particular for the monotone catenary degree and for the structure of sets of lengths and of their unions.
Let $S$ be a nonnegative semiring of the real line, called here a positive semiring. We study factorizations in both the additive monoid $(S,+)$ and the multiplicative monoid $(S\setminus\{0\}, \cdot)$. In particular, we investigate when, for a positive semiring $S$, both $(S,+)$ and $(S\setminus\{0\}, \cdot)$ have the following properties: atomicity, the ACCP, the bounded factorization property (BFP), the finite factorization property (FFP), and the half-factorial property (HFP). It is well known that in the context of cancellative and commutative monoids, the chain of implications HFP $\Righ…
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…
A numerical monoid is an additive submonoid of the non-negative integers. Given a numerical monoid $S$, consider the family of "shifted" monoids $M_n$ obtained by adding $n$ to each generator of $S$. In this paper, we examine minimal relations among the generators of $M_n$ when $n$ is sufficiently large, culminating in a description that is periodic in the shift parameter $n$. We explore several applications to computation, combinatorial commutative algebra, and factorization theory.
