English

The catenary degree of Krull monoids II

Commutative Algebra 2019-02-20 v2 Combinatorics Number Theory

Abstract

Let HH be a Krull monoid with finite class group GG such that every class contains a prime divisor (for example, a ring of integers in an algebraic number field or a holomorphy ring in an algebraic function field). The catenary degree c(H)\mathsf c (H) of HH is the smallest integer NN with the following property: for each aHa \in H and each two factorizations z,zz, z' of aa, there exist factorizations z=z0,...,zk=zz = z_0, ..., z_k = z' of aa such that, for each i[1,k]i \in [1, k], ziz_i arises from zi1z_{i-1} by replacing at most NN atoms from zi1z_{i-1} by at most NN new atoms. To exclude trivial cases, suppose that G3|G| \ge 3. Then the catenary degree depends only on the class group GG and we have c(H)[3,D(G)]\mathsf c (H) \in [3, \mathsf D (G)], where D(G)\mathsf D (G) denotes the Davenport constant of GG. It is well-known when c(H){3,4,D(G)}\mathsf c (H) \in \{3,4, \mathsf D (G)\} holds true. Based on a characterization of the catenary degree determined in the first paper (The catenary degree of Krull monoids I), we determine the class groups satisfying c(H)=D(G)1\mathsf c (H)= \mathsf D (G)-1. Apart from the mentioned extremal cases the precise value of c(H)\mathsf c (H) is known for no further class groups.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1407.0548,
  title  = {The catenary degree of Krull monoids II},
  author = {Alfred Geroldinger and Qinghai Zhong},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1407.0548},
  year   = {2019}
}

Comments

To appear in Journal of the Australian Mathematical Society