On products of <Emphasis Type="Italic">k</Emphasis> atoms

Let H be an atomic monoid. For let denote the set of all with the following property: There exist atoms (irreducible elements) u ₁, …, u _k , v ₁, …, v _m ∈ H with u ₁· … · u _k = v ₁ · … · v _m . We show that for a large class of noetherian domains satisfying some natural finiteness conditions, the sets are almost arithmetical progressions. Suppose that H is a Krull monoid with finite cyclic class group G such that every class contains a prime (this includes the multiplicative monoids of rings of integers of algebraic number fields). We show that, for every , max which settles Problem 38 in 4]. Authors’ addresses: W. Gao, Center for Combinatorics, Nankai University, Tianjin 300071, P.R. China; A. Geroldinger, Institut für Mathematik und Wissenschaftliches Rechnen, Karl-Franzens-Universit?t Graz, Heinrichstra?e 36, 8010 Graz, Austria