Elasticity of \(A+XI[X]\) domains where \(A\) is a UFD (Q5939904)

An integral domain \(R\) is atomic if each non-zero non-unit of \(R\) is a product of irreducible elements. An atomic integral domain \(R\) is called a half-factorial domain (HFD) if any two factorizations of a given non-zero non-unit of \(R\) into irreducible elements have the same length. The elasticity of an atomic integral domain \(R\), defined by \(\rho(R)= \sup\{m/n\mid x_1\dots x_m=y_1\dots y_n\) for irreducible \(x_i\), \(y_j\in R\}\), measures, in some sense, how far \(R\) is from being an HFD. In this paper, the authors consider integral domains of the form \(R=A+XI [X]\subset A[X]\), where A is a UFD and \(I\) is a nonzero proper ideal of \(A\). Such an \(R\) is atomic, and they show that \(\rho(R)\) is finite if and only if \(I=P_1\dots P_k\), where \(P_1,\dots, P_k\) are incomparable prime ideals of \(A\) with at most one of them non-principal. In this case, \(\rho(R)=k\) and \(\rho(R)\) is not realized by a factorization when \(k\geq 2\). In particular, \(R\) is an HFD if and only if \(I\) is a prime ideal of \(A\).