Elasticity in Polynomial-Type Extensions

Abstract

AbstractThe elasticity of an atomic integral domain is, in some sense, a measure of how far the domain is from being a half-factorial domain. We consider the relationship between the elasticity of a domain R and the elasticity of its polynomial ring R[x]. For example, if R has at least one atom, a sufficient condition for the polynomial ring R[x] to have elasticity 1 is that every non-constant irreducible polynomial f ∈ R[x] be irreducible in K[x]. We will determine the integral domains R whose polynomial rings satisfy this condition.