Factorization theory: from commutative to noncommutative settings. (Q493773)

The authors study questions of non-unique factorization arising in semigroups of non-zero divisors in non-commutative rings. In this case, contrary to the case of commutative rings, several notions of factorizations occur and the authors deal with some of them. They generalize to the non-commutative case several arithmetical invariants related to factorizations, in particular the catenary degree, the tame degree and the \(\omega\)-invariant and prove several properties of these notions, utilizing the language of small categories with a single object. The general theory is then applied in the case of maximal orders in central simple algebras over global fields and rings of upper triangular matrices over commutative domains.