Some topics in abstract factorization

Anderson and Frazier defined a generalization of factorization in integral domains called tau-factorization. If D is an integral domain and tau is a symmetric relation on the nonzero nonunits of D, then a tau-factorization of a nonzero nonunit a in D is an expression a = lambda a_1 ... a_n, where lambda is a unit in D, each a_i is a nonzero nonunit in D, and a_i tau a_j for i != j. If tau = D^# x D^#, where D^# denotes the nonzero nonunits of D, then the tau-factorizations are just the usual factorizations, and with other choices of tau we get interesting variants on standard factorization. For example, if we define a tau_d b if and only if (a, b) = D, then the tau_d-factorizations are the comaximal factorizations introduced by McAdam and Swan. Anderson and Frazier defined tau-factorization analogues of many different factorization concepts and properties, and proved a number of theorems either generalizing standard factorization results or the comaximal factorization results of McAdam and Swan. Some of these concepts include tau-UFD's, tau-atomic domains, the tau-ACCP property, tau-BFD's, tau-FFD's, and tau-HFD's. They showed the implications between these concepts and showed how each of the standard variations implied their tau-factorization counterparts (sometimes assuming certain natural constraints on tau). Later, Ortiz-Albino introduced a new concept called Gamma-factorization that generalized tau-factorization. We will summarize the known theory of tau-factorization and Gamma-factorization as well as introduce several new or improved results.