Elasticity of factorization in number fields (Q2640650)

For a Noetherian domain \(R\) (which is not a field) the author defines the elasticity of \(R\) to be \(\sup(X)\) where \(X\) is the subset of \(\mathbb Q\) defined by \(X=\{m/n : \) there are irreducibles \(\pi_ 1,\pi_ 2,\ldots,\pi_ m\), \(\tau_ 1,\tau_ 2,\ldots,\tau_ n\in R\) with \(\pi_ 1\pi_ 2\cdots\pi_ m=\tau_ 1\tau_ 2\cdots\tau_ n\}\); whence, \(\rho(R)\) measures the failure of \(R\) to be a unique factorization domain. This is related to the well-known Carlitz criterion which says that \(\rho(A)=1\) if and only if \(h\leq 2\) where \(h\) is the class number (or order of the class group \(C_ K)\) of the ring of integers \(A\) of an algebraic number field \(K\). The author proves three results among which is that \(\rho(A)\) is bounded from above by \(h/2\) whenever \(C_ K\neq 1\). The author defines a new group invariant called sequential depth to prove this.