Separators of ideals in multiplicative semigroups of unique factorization domains (Q512200)

Let \(S\) be a semigroup and we say \(S\) satisfies condition \((*)\) if the following three conditions hold: {\parindent=0.7cm\begin{itemize}\item[1.] \(S\) is commutative with a zero; \item[2.] for every non-identity element \(s\in S\), there is a nonzero element \(x\in S\) such that \(xs=0\); \item[3.] for any \(s,t\in S\), if \(xs=0\) iff \(xt=0\) for all \(x\in S\), then \(s=t\). \end{itemize}} Let \(H\) be a subset of \(S\). Then we let \[ P_H=\{(a,b)\in S\times S\mid xay\in H\text{ if and only if }xby\in H \text{ for any \(x,y\in S\)}\}\,. \] The author shows that Theorem. Let \(C\) ba a commutative semigroup. If \(I\) is an ideal of \(C\) such that \(\mathsf{Sep} I:=\{x\in S\mid x(S\setminus I)\subset S\setminus I\}\neq \emptyset\), then \(P_I\) is a congruence on \(C\) such that \(I\) and \(\mathsf {Sep}I\) are \(P_I\)-classes of \(C\), and the factor semigroup \(C/P_I\) satisfies condition \((*)\). Conversely, if \(\alpha\) is a congruence on \(C\) such that the factor semigroup \(C/\alpha\) satisfies condition \((*)\), then there is an ideal \(I\) of \(C\) such that \(\alpha=P_I\). Let \(D\) be a unique factorization domain and \(D_{\mathrm{mult}}\) denote the multiplicative semigroup of \(D\). For every \(m\in D\), let \(J(m)\) denote the ideal generated by \(m\) and for every \(a,b\in D\), let \(a\sim b\) denote that \(a\) and \(b\) are associated. We let \([x]_{\sim}\) denote the \(\sim\)-class of \(D\) containing \(x\in D\) and let \(\tau_m\) denote the relation on \(D\) as follows: for any \(a,b\in D\), \((a,b)\in \tau_m\) if and only if \(\gcd(a,m)\sim \gcd(b,m)\). Applying the above theorem, the author proves the following results for multiplicative semigroups of unique factorization domains. Theorem. Let \(m\) be a nonzero element of \(D\). Then \(P_{J(m)}=\tau_m\) and the factor semigroup \(D_{\mathrm{mult}}/\tau_m\) satisfies condition \((*)\). Theorem. Let \(a\) be a nonzero element of \(D\). Then the index of the congruence \(P_{J([a]_{\sim})}\) in the semigroup \(D'=D_{\mathrm{mult}}/\sim\) is finite and the number of all non associated divisors of \(a\) equals \(|D'/P_{J([a]_{\sim})}|\).