THE CLASS GROUP OF D^*/U FOR D AN INTEGRAL DOMAIN AND U A GROUP OF UNITS OF D

Let D be an integral domain, and let U be a group of units of D. Let $D^*=D-\{0\}$ and ${\Gamma}=D^*/U$ be the commutative cancellative semigroup under aU+bU=abU. We prove that $Cl(D)=Cl({\Gamma})$ and that D is a PvMD (resp., GCD-domain, Mori domain, Krull domain, factorial domain) if and only if ${\Gamma}$ is a PvMS(resp., GCD-semigroup, Mori semigroup, Krull semigroup, factorial semigroup). Let U=U(D) be the group of units of D. We also show that if D is integrally closed, then $D[{\Gamma}]$, the semigroup ring of ${\Gamma}$ over D, is an integrally closed domain with $Cl(D[{\Gamma}])=Cl(D){\oplus}Cl(D)$; hence D is a PvMD (resp., GCD-domain, Krull domain, factorial domain) if and only if $D[{\Gamma}]$ is.