Factorization in commutative rings with zero divisors. III (Q5940653)

[For parts I and II see \textit{A. G. Aḡargün, D. D. Anderson} and \textit{S. Valdes-Leon}, Rocky Mt. J. Math. 26, No. 2, 439-480 (1999; Zbl 0865.13001) and \textit{D. D. Anderson} and \textit{S. Valdes-Leon}, Lect. Notes Pure Appl. Math. 189, 197-219 (1997; Zbl 0878.13001).] This paper is the third of a series of articles on factorization in commutative rings with zero divisors, \(R\), where the concepts of irreducible, strongly irreducible and very strongly irreducible were defined from the concept of associates. The above definitions allow to define atomic, strongly atomic and very strongly atomic rings. Section 2 of the paper under review is devoted to the proof that the different forms of atomicity of \(R\) are translated to \(R_S\), whenever the multiplicative set \(S\) is generated by certain type of primes, called regular. In section 3, the authors characterize the atomic rings such that almost all atoms are prime. Finally, they study those rings such that each non-zero unit has only finitely many factorizations up to order and associates and also those rings which satisfy that each non-zero unit \(a\) has associated a natural number \(N(a)\) in such a way that all factorizations of \(a\) into irreducible elements have, at most, \(N(a)\) factors.