Minimal relations and catenary degrees in Krull monoids (Q670635)

Let $H$ be a Krull monoid with class group $G$, let $H_{\text{red}}$ be the reduced monoid of $H$, and let $\mathcal A(H_{\text{red}})$ be the set of atoms of $H_{\text{red}}$. The free abelian monoid $\mathsf Z (H) = \mathcal F (\mathcal A (H_{\text{red}}))$ is the factorization monoid of $H$, and the unique homomorphism $\pi : \mathsf Z (H) \to H_{\text{red}}$ satisfying $\pi (u) = u$ for all $u \in \mathcal A (H_{\text{red}})$ is the factorization homomorphism of $H$ (so $\pi$ maps a formal product of atoms onto its product in $H_{\text{red}}$). For $a \in H$, $\mathsf Z_H (a) = \mathsf Z (a) = \pi^{-1} (a) \subset \mathsf Z (H)$ is the set of factorizations of $a$. Then $H$ is atomic (i.e., each non-unit can be written as a finite product of atoms) if and only if $\mathsf Z (a) \ne \emptyset$ for each $a \in H$, and $H$ is factorial if and only if $|\mathsf Z (a)|=1$ for each $a \in H$. \par Two factorizations $z,\, z' \in \mathsf Z (H)$ can be written in the form \[ z = u_1 \cdot \ldots \cdot u_lv_1 \cdot \ldots \cdot v_m \quad \text{and} \quad z' = u_1 \cdot \ldots \cdot u_lw_1 \cdot \ldots \cdot w_n \] with \[ \{v_1 ,\ldots, v_m \} \cap \{w_1, \ldots, w_n \} = \emptyset, \] where $l,\,m,\, n\in \mathbb N_0$ and $u_1, \ldots, u_l,\,v_1, \ldots,v_m,\, w_1, \ldots, w_n \in \mathcal A(H_{\text{red}})$. Then $\gcd (z, z') = u_1 \cdot \ldots \cdot u_l$, and we call $\mathsf d (z, z') = \max \{m,\, n\} = \max \{ |z \gcd (z, z')^{-1}|, |z'\gcd (z, z')^{-1}| \}\in \mathbb N_0$ the \textit{distance} between $z$ and $z'$. It is easy to verify that $\mathsf d : \mathsf Z (H) \times \mathsf Z (H) \to \mathbb N_0$ has all the usual properties of a metric. \par Let $a \in H$ and $N \in \mathbb N_0 \cup \{\infty\}$. A finite sequence $z_0, \ldots, z_k \in \mathsf Z (a)$ is called an \textit{$N$-chain of factorizations} if $\mathsf d (z_{i-1}, z_i) \le N$ for all $i \in [1, k]$. We denote by $\mathsf c (a)$ the smallest $N \in \mathbb N _0 \cup \{\infty\}$ such that any two factorizations $z,\, z' \in \mathsf Z (a)$ can be concatenated by an $N$-chain and call \[ \mathsf c(H) = \sup \{ \mathsf c(b) \, \mid b \in H\} \in \mathbb N_0 \cup \{\infty\} \] the catenary of $H$. \par The set of catenary degrees is defined as \[ \mathsf {Ca}(H)=\{\mathsf c(a)\mid a\in H, \mathsf c(a)>0\} \] and the set of distances in minimal relations $\mathcal {R}(H)$ is defined to be all $d\in \mathbb N$ having the following property: There is an element $a\in H$ having two distinct factorizations $z$ and $z'$ with distance $\mathsf d(z,z') = d$, but there is no $d-1$-chain of factorizations concatenating $z$ and $z'$. \par The authors prove that every finite nonempty subset of $\mathbb N_{\ge 2}$ can be realized as the set of catenary degrees of a Krull monoid with finite class group. Under the assumption that every class contains a prime divisor (for example, a ring of integers in an algebraic number field or a holomorphy ring in an algebraic function field) and a reasonable condition on the Davenport constant of $G$, they also show that \[ \mathcal R(H)=\mathsf {Ca}(H)=[2, \mathsf c(H)]. \]