Evaluations of initial ideals and Castelnuovo-Mumford regularity

This paper characterizes the Castelnuovo-Mumford regularity by evaluating the initial ideal with respect to the reverse lexicographic order

Integral closures of monomial ideals and Fulkersonian hypergraphs

We prove that the integral closures of the powers of a squarefree monomial ideal I equal the symbolic powers if and only if I is the edge ideal of a Fulkersonian hypergraph.Comment: 5 page

Constructive characterization of the reduction numbers

We present a constructive description of minimal reductions with a given reduction number. This description has interesting consequences on the minimal reduction number, the big reduction number, and the core of an ideal. In particular, it helps solve a conjecture of Vasconcelos on the relationship between reduction numbers and initial ideals.Comment: 15 page

Absolutely superficial sequences

Absolutely superficial sequences was introduced by P. Schenzel in order to study generalized Cohen-Macaulay (resp. Buchsbaum) modules. For an arbitrary local ring, they turned out to be d-sequences. This paper established properties of absolutely superficial sequences with respect to a module. It is shown that they are closely related to other sequences in the theory of generalized Cohen-Macaulay (resp. Buchsbaum) modules. In particular, there is a bounding function for the Hilbert-Samuel function of every parameter ideal such that this bounding function is attained if and only if the ideal is generated by an absolutely superficial sequence

Grobner bases, local cohomology and reduction number

D. Bayer and M. Stillman showed that Grobner bases can be used to compute the Castelnuovo-Mumford regularity, which is a measure for the vanishing of graded local cohomology modules. The aim of this paper is to show that the same method can be applied to study other cohomological invariants as well as the reduction number

Positivity of mixed multiplicities

This paper studies mixed multiplicities of an arbitrary standard bigraded algebra and mixed multiplicities of two ideals I, J in a local ring (A,m), where I is an m-primary ideal and J an arbitrary ideal. The main results are criteria for their positivity which can be used to compute them effectively. We also show that the range of positive mixed multiplicities of a bigraded algebra is rigid if the algebra satisfies the first chain condition and is connected in codimension one and that this range is always rigid for mixed multiplicities of ideals. These results can be used to study the mu-invariants of analytic hypersurfaces, the degree of rational varieties obtained by blowing-up projective spaces, and the degree of the Stuckrad-Vogel cycles in intersection theory.Comment: 25 page

Mixed multiplicities of ideals versus mixed volumes of polytopes

The main results of this paper interpret mixed volumes of lattice polytopes as mixed multiplicities of ideals and mixed multiplicities of ideals as Samuel's multiplicities. In particular, we can give a purely algebraic proof of Bernstein's theorem which asserts that the number of common zeros of a system of Laurent polynomial equations in the torus is bounded above by the mixed volume of their Newton polytopes.Comment: 19 pages, to appear in Trans. Amer. Math. So

Depth and regularity of powers of sums of ideals

Given arbitrary homogeneous ideals $I$ and $J$ in polynomial rings $A$ and $B$ over a field $k$, we investigate the depth and the Castelnuovo-Mumford regularity of powers of the sum $I+J$ in $A \otimes_k B$ in terms of those of $I$ and $J$. Our results can be used to study the behavior of the depth and regularity functions of powers of an ideal. For instance, we show that such a depth function can take as its values any infinite non-increasing sequence of non-negative integers.Comment: 19 pages; to appear in Math.

On the core of ideals

Our focus in this paper is in effective computation of the core core(I) of an ideal I which is defined to be the intersection of all minimal reductions of I. The first main result is a closed formula for the graded core(m) of the maximal graded ideal m of an arbitrary standard graded algebra A over a field k. This formula allows us to study basic properties of the graded core and to construct counter-examples to some open questions on the core of ideals in a local ring. For instance, we can show that in general, core(m \otimes E) \neq core(m)\otimes E, where E is a field extension of k. From this it follows that the equation core(I R') = core(I)R' does not hold for an arbitrary flat local homomorphism R \to R' of Cohen-Macaulay local rings. The second main result proves the formulae core(I)= (J^r:I^r)I = (J^r:I^r)J = J^{r+1}:I^r for any equimultiple ideal I in a Cohen-Macaulay ring R with with characteristic zero residue field, where J is a minimal reduction of I and r is its reduction number. This result has been obtained independently by Polini-Ulrich and Hyry-Smith in the one-dimensional case or when R is a Gorenstein ring. Moreover, we can prove that core(I) = IK, where K is the conductor of R in the blowing-up ring at I.Comment: 20 pages, to appear in Compositio Mat

Krull dimension and Monomial Orders

We introduce the notion of independent sequences with respect to a monomial order by using the least terms of polynomials vanishing at the sequence. Our main result shows that the Krull dimension of a Noetherian ring is equal to the supremum of the length of independent sequences. The proof has led to other notions of independent sequences, which have interesting applications. For example, we can characterize the maximum number of analytically independent elements in an arbitrary ideal of a local ring and that dim B is not greater than dim A if B is a subalgebra of A and A is a (not necessarily finitely generated) subalgebra of a finitely generated algebra over a Noetherian Jacobson ring.Comment: This is a revised version of the submitted manuscrip