On integral domains with no atoms

Abstract

Antimatter domains are defined to be the integral domains which do not have any atoms. It is proved that each integral domain can be em-bedded as a subring of some antimatter domain which is not a field. Any fragmented domain is an antimatter domain, but the converse fails in each positive Krull dimension. A detailed study is made of the passage of the“an-timatter”property between the partners within an overring extension. Special attention is given to characterizing antimatter domains in classes of valuation domains, pseudo-valuation domains, and various types of pullbacks.