The system of sets of lengths in Krull monoids under set addition (Q726770)

Let \(H\) be a Krull monoid with class group \(G\) and suppose that each class contains a prime divisor. Then every element \(a\in H\) has a factorization into irreducible elements, and the set \(L(a)\subset \mathbb{N}\) of all possible factorization lengths for \(a\) is the set of lengths of \(a\). Let \(\mathcal{L}(H)=\{L(a): a\in H\}\) be the system of sets of lengths of \(H\). The invariant \(\mathcal{L}(H)\) is said to be additively closed if the sumset \(L + L'\in \mathcal{L}(H)\) for all sets of lengths \(L,L'\in \mathcal{L}(H)\). The system of sets of lengths is one of the best investigated invariants in factorization theory. However, the invariant has been explicitly determined only in some very special cases. Recent studies of direct-sum decompositions in module theory revealed monoids of modules which are Krull and whose systems of sets of lengths are additively closed. In this paper, the two authors considered the system \(\mathcal{L}(H)=\{L(a): a\in H\}\) of all sets of lengths, and they characterized (in terms of the class group \(G\)) when \(\mathcal{L}(H)\) is additively closed under set addition.