English

When is a Puiseux monoid atomic?

Commutative Algebra 2020-05-19 v2

Abstract

A Puiseux monoid is an additive submonoid of the nonnegative rational numbers. If MM is a Puiseux monoid, then the question of whether each non-invertible element of MM can be written as a sum of irreducible elements (that is, MM 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 MM is finitely generated, factorial, half-factorial, other-half-factorial, Pr\"ufer, seminormal, root-closed, and completely integrally closed. In addition to the atomicity, characterizations are also not known for when MM satisfies the ACCP, the bounded factorization property, or the finite factorization property. In each of these cases, we construct an infinite class of Puiseux monoids satisfying the corresponding property.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1908.09227,
  title  = {When is a Puiseux monoid atomic?},
  author = {Scott T. Chapman and Felix Gotti and Marly Gotti},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1908.09227},
  year   = {2020}
}

Comments

24 pages; the previous version has been rewritten in a more friendly way. This version will appear in the American Mathematical Monthly

R2 v1 2026-06-23T10:56:00.501Z