Accepted elasticity in local arithmetic congruence monoids. (Q471749)

The paper is devoted to the study of arithmetic congruence monoids of the form \(M=M(a,b)=\{x\in\mathbb N:x\equiv a\pmod b\}\cup\{1\}\), where \(a\leq b\) and \(a^2\equiv a\bmod b\). The elasticity \(\rho(x)\) of \(x\in M\) is defined by \(\rho(x)=r/s\), where \(r,s\) are the lengths of the longest, resp. shortest factorization of \(x\) into irreducibles, and one puts \(\rho(M)=\sup_{x\in M}\rho(x)\). One says that \(M\) has accepted elasticity if for some \(x\in M\) one has \(\rho(x)=\rho(M)\). It was shown by \textit{M. Banister, J. Chaika, S. T. Chapman} and \textit{W. Meyerson} [Colloq. Math. 108, No. 1, 105-118 (2007; Zbl 1142.20038)] that if \(D=\gcd(a,b)\) is neither \(1\) nor a prime power, then \(M(a,b)\) does not have accepted elasticity. They observed also that in the case \(D=1\) (hence \(a\equiv1\bmod b\)) \(M(a,b)\) has accepted elasticity. The authors consider the case \(D=p^\alpha\) (\(\alpha\geq 1\)), hence \(M(a,b)=M(p^\alpha\xi,p^\alpha n)\) and \(n\) satisfies one of the three following conditions: (a) \(n\in\{1,2,8,12\}\), (b) Either \(p_1p_2p_3\mid n\), or \(4p_1p_2\mid n\), or \(8p_1\mid n\), where \(p_i\) are odd primes, (c) \(n=2^cN\) with \(c\in\{0,1\}\) and \(N=p_1^{a_1}p_2^{a_2}\) with \(a_i\geq 1\) and \(\gcd(p_1-1,p_2-1)>2\). They show that for these \(n\) \(M(a,b)\) will have accepted elasticity for all primes \(p\) and all sufficiently large \(\alpha\). For all other values of \(n\) there are infinitely many primes \(p\) such that \(M(p^\alpha\xi,p^\alpha n)\) have accepted elasticity for all \(p\) and all sufficiently large \(\alpha\), and also infinitely many primes for which this does not hold.