The set of minimal distances in Krull monoids
Let H be a Krull monoid with class group G. Then every nonunit a ∈ H can be written as a finite product of atoms, say . The set (a) of all possible factorization lengths k is called the set of lengths of a. If G is finite, then there is a constant M ∈ ℕ such that all sets of lengths are almost arithmetical multiprogressions with bound M and with difference d ∈ Δ*(H), where Δ*(H) denotes the set of minimal distances of H. We show that max Δ*(H) ≤ maxexp(G)-2,(G)-1 and that equality holds if every...