On the asymptotic behavior of irreducibles in block semigroups (Q5939964)

For a finite abelian group \(G\) let \(B(G)\) be the free multiplicative commutative semigroup with basis \(G_0=G\setminus\{0\}\) and for \(S\subset G_0\) put \[ B(G,S)=\bigg\{\sum a_gg\in B(G): a_g=0\quad\text{ for}\quad g\not\in S\bigg\}. \] Let, for \(x\in B(G)\), \(\eta(x)\) be the number of distinct factorization into irreducibles. Moreover \(\sigma(x)\) is defined by the formula \(\eta(x^n)=An^{\sigma(x)}(1+o(1))\) as \(n\) tends to \(\infty\), established by \textit{F. Halter-Koch} [Ark. Mat. 31, 297--305 (1993; Zbl 0792.11042)]. The authors describe the elements \(x\in B(G)\) for which \(\sigma(x)\) equals \(0\) or \(1\) and give examples of \(G\) and \(S\) with prescribed extremal values of \(\sigma(x)\) in \(B(G,S)\). This is used to give some new characterizations of elementary abelian \(p\)-groups and cyclic \(p\)-groups.