On the set of elasticities in numerical monoids (Q2361717)

Let \(\mathbb{N}\) denote the set of nonnegative integers. Let \(S\) be a numerical semigroup (a submonoid of \(\mathbb{N}\) under addition with finite complement in \(\mathbb{N}\)). Assume that \(S\) is minimally generated by \(\{g_1,\ldots, g_k\}\). Then, every element \(s\) in \(S\) admits an expression of the form \(s=\sum_{i=1}^k x_i g_i\) with \((x_1,\ldots, x_k)\in \mathbb{N}^k\). The set of tuples \((x_1,\ldots,x_k)\) is known as the set of factorizations of \(s\), denoted \(\mathsf{Z}(s)\). The length of the factorization \((x_1,\ldots,x_k)\) is \(|x|=\sum_{i=1}^k x_i\). The set of lengths of factorizations of \(s\) in \(S\) is \(\mathcal{L}(s)=\{|x| : x\in \mathsf{Z}(s)\}\). Every numerical semigroup is a BF-monoid (a monoid where the sets of lengths of its elements have finite cardinality), since \(\mathsf{Z}(s)\) has finitely many elements for every \(s\in S\). A monoid \(S\) is half factorial if \(\mathcal{L}(s)\) is a singleton for each \(s\in S\). Note that the only half factorial numerical semigroup is \(\mathbb{N}\). The set of length sets of \(S\), \(\mathcal{L}(S)\), is defined as \(\mathcal{L}(S)=\{ \mathcal{L}(s) : s\in S\}\). Let \(M(s)\) and \(m(s)\) denote the maximum and minimum of \(\mathcal{L}(s)\), respectively. The elasticity of \(s\) in \(S\) is defined as \(\rho(s)=M(s)/m(s)\). The elasticity of \(S\) is the supremum (in our setting maximum) of the elasticities of the elements in \(S\). This invariant measures how far is \(S\) from being half-factorial. In this manuscript, the authors study the set \(R(S)=\{\rho(s) : s\in S\}\), which gives more information than the elasticity of \(S\); in fact, the elasticity of a numerical semigroup \(S\) is the maximum of \(R(S)\). It is well known that different numerical semigroups may have the same sets of length sets. The aim of this paper is twofold. First, the authors show that two semigroups generated by arithmetic sequences have the same sets of length sets if and only if they have the same sets of elasticities. To this end, the authors describe the set \(R(S)\) as the set of elasticities associated to terns. Then, they describe the step of the arithmetic progression in terms of the three minimal values of \(R(S)\). This, together with a technical result allows them to state that set of elasticities is as strong an invariant as the set of length sets for numerical semigroups generated by arithmetic sequences. The second main result of this paper is to describe the set \(R(S)\) as a union of a finite set and the union of monotone increasing sequences with limit \(\rho(S)=\max R(S)\). To this end, the authors study the behavior of \(M\) and \(m\) when subtracting the least and greatest minimal generators of \(S\), respectively.