Structural properties of subadditive families with applications to factorization theory

Abstract

Let $H$ be a multiplicatively written monoid. Given $k\in{\bf N}^+$, we denote by $\mathscr U_k$ the set of all $\ell\in{\bf N}^+$ such that $a_1\cdots a_k=b_1\cdots b_\ell$ for some atoms $a_1,\ldots,a_k,b_1,\ldots,b_\ell\in H$. The sets $\mathscr U_k$ are one of the most fundamental invariants studied in the theory of non-unique factorization, and understanding their structure is a basic problem in the field: In particular, it is known that, in many cases of interest, these sets are almost arithmetic progressions with the same difference and bound for all large $k$, namely, $H$ satisfies the Structure Theorem for Unions. The present paper improves the current state of the art on this problem. More precisely, we show that, under mild assumptions on $H$, not only does the Structure Theorem for Unions hold, but there also exists $\mu\in{\bf N}^+$ such that, for every $M\in{\bf N}$, the sequences $$ \bigl((\mathscr U_k-\inf\mathscr U_k)\cap[\![0,M]\!]\bigr)_{k\ge 1} \quad\text{and}\quad \bigl((\sup\mathscr U_k-\mathscr U_k)\cap[\![0,M]\!]\bigr)_{k\ge 1} $$ are $\mu$-periodic from some point on. The result applies, e.g., to (the multiplicative monoid of) all commutative Krull domains (e.g., Dedekind domains) with finite class group; a variety of weakly Krull commutative domains (including all orders in number fields with finite elasticity); some maximal orders in central simple algebras over global fields; and all numerical monoids. Large parts of the proofs are worked out in a "purely additive model", by inquiring into the properties of what we call a subadditive family, i.e., a collection $\mathscr L$ of subsets of $\bf N$ such that, for all $L_1,L_2\in\mathscr L$, there is $L\in\mathscr L$ with $L_1+L_2\subseteq L$.