Elasticity in certain block monoids via the Euclidean table

This paper continues the study begun in GEROLDINGER, A.: On non-unique factorizations into irreducible elements II, Colloq. Math. Soc. János Bolyai 51 (1987), 723–757] concerning factorization properties of block monoids of the form ℬ(ℤ _n , S) where S = (hereafter denoted ℬ _a (n)). We introduce in Section 2 the notion of a Euclidean table and show in Theorem 2.8 how it can be used to identify the irreducible elements of ℬ _a (n). In Section 3 we use the Euclidean table to compute the elasticity of ℬ _a (n) (Theorem 3.4). Section 4 considers the problem, for a fixed value of n, of computing the complete set of elasticities of the ℬ _a (n) monoids. When n = p is a prime integer, Proposition 4.12 computes the three smallest possible elasticities of the ℬ _a (p). Part of this work was completed while the second author was on an Academic Leave granted by the Trinity University Faculty Development Committee.