Elasticity of factorizations in integral domains

For an atomic integral domain R, define(R)=sup{mn|x₁x_m=y₁y_n, each x_i,y_jεR is irreducible}. We investigate (R), with emphasis for Krull domains R. When R is a Krull domain, we determine lower and upper bounds for (R); in particular,(R)≤max{|Cl(R)| 2, 1}. Moreover, we show that for any real numbers r≥1 or R=∞, there is a Dedekind domain R with torsion class group such that (R)=r.