One half of almost symmetric numerical semigroups (Q2634953)

Let \(\mathcal{S}\) be a \textit{numerical semigroup}, that is, a submonoid of the additive monoid \((\mathbb{N},+)\) such that \(\mathbb{N}\setminus \mathcal{S}\) has finitely many elements. The cardinality of \(\mathbb{N}\setminus\mathcal{S}\) is called the \textit{genus} of \(\mathcal{S}\), while the maximum of \(\mathbb{Z} \setminus \mathcal{S}\) is called the \textit{Frobenius number} of \(\mathcal{S}\), denoted by \(\mathrm F(\mathcal{S})\). Numerical semigroups arise in several contexts; for instance, the value semigroup of an analytically unramified one-dimensional local domain is a numerical semigroup. Actually, several invariants and classes of numerical semigroups are defined by translating properties of these rings to the associated numerical semigroups. The set of pseudo-Frobenius numbers \(\mathrm{PF}(\mathcal{S}) = \{x \in \mathbb{Z} \setminus \mathcal{S} \mid x + s \in \mathcal{S} \text{ for any } s \in \mathcal{S} \setminus \{0\}\}\). The cardinality of \(\mathrm{PF}(\mathcal{S})\) is called the \textit{type} of \(\mathcal{S}\) (the name is due to the correlation between this invariant and the Cohen-Macaulay type of the associated ring). A numerical semigroup is said to be \textit{symmetric} if for every \(x \in \mathbb{Z} \setminus \mathcal{S}\) we have \(\mathrm F(\mathcal{S})-x \in \mathcal{S}\); if \(\mathrm F(\mathcal{S})\) is even and the previous property holds for every \(x \in \mathbb{Z} \setminus \mathcal{S}\) but \(\frac{F(\mathcal{S})}{2}\), the numerical semigroup is said to be \textit{pseudo-symmetric}. In the literature, it is proved that symmetric and pseudo-symmetric numerical semigroups are the semigroup equivalent of Gorenstein and Kunz rings. Recently, \textit{almost-symmetric} numerical semigroups were introduced as a generalization of symmetric and pseudo-symmetric numerical semigroups. For a positive integer \(d\) and a numerical semigroup \(\mathcal{S}\), the set \(\frac{\mathcal{S}}{d}=\{x \in \mathbb{N} \mid dx \in S\}\) is again a numerical semigroup, called the \textit{quotient} of \(\mathcal{S}\) by \(d\). \textit{J. C. Rosales} and \textit{P. A. García-Sánchez} [Commun. Algebra 36, No. 8, 2910--2916 (2008; Zbl 1166.20055)] proved that every numerical semigroup can be realized as one half (i.e., a semigroup of the form \(\frac{\mathcal{S}}{2}\)) of infinitely many symmetric numerical semigroups; moreover, \textit{J. C. Rosales} [Bull. Lond. Math. Soc. 40, No. 2, 347--352 (2008; Zbl 1148.20043)] studied the numerical semigroups which are one half of a pseudo-symmetric numerical semigroup. In this work, the author proves a generalization of these results, by considering numerical semigroups \(\mathcal{S}\) which are one half of an almost symmetric numerical semigroup \(\mathcal{T}\). After some preliminaries, the author recalls the definition of \textit{numerical duplication}, and proves that every numerical semigroup can be realized as numerical duplication (Proposition 3.3); the author then studies two separate cases, according to the parity of the type of the numerical semigroup \(\mathcal{T}\). In particular, if the type of \(\mathcal{T}\) is odd, the author shows that \(\mathcal{T}\) is almost symmetric if and only if it can be obtained as a numerical duplication of \(\mathcal{S}\) with respect to a relative ideal and an odd integer satisfying some conditions (Theorem 3.7), thus effectively characterizing the set of halves of an almost symmetric numerical semigroup with odd type. On the other hand, it is proved that if the type of \(\mathcal{T}\) is even, then \(\mathcal{S}\) is almost symmetric, and \(\mathrm{PF}(\mathcal{S})\) consists of all even elements of \(\mathrm{PF}(\mathcal{T})\) (Theorem 4.2), thus generalizing the known results on halves of pseudo-symmetric numerical semigroups. Furthermore, a characterization of numerical semigroups which are one half of an almost symmetric numerical semigroup with even type is provided (Theorem 4.6 and Corollary 4.7), which implies that a numerical semigroup is almost symmetric if and only if is one half of an almost symmetric numerical semigroup with even type (Corollary 4.12).