Growth conditions for a family of ideals containing regular sequences

It has been conjectured by Eisenbud-Green-Harris that lex-plus-powers ideals exhibit extremal conditions among all homogeneous ideals containing a regular sequence of forms in fixed degrees. In the same spirit, we consider a family of homogeneous ideals in k[x,y,z] which contain a regular sequence of forms F,G∈k[x,y] and compare the growth of these ideals with special monomial ideals sharing similar properties.     

Artinian level modules of embedding dimension two

We prove that a sequence of positive integers (h₀,h₁,…,h_c) is the Hilbert function of an artinian level module of embedding dimension two if and only if h_i−1−2h_i+h_i+1≤0 for all 0≤i≤c, where we assume that h₋₁=h_c+1=0. This generalizes a result already known for artinian level algebras. We provide two proofs, one using a deformation argument, the other a construction with monomial ideals. We also discuss liftings of artinian modules to modules of dimension one.     

Abelian ideals of Borel subalgebras and affine Weyl groups

This paper is devoted to a detailed study of certain remarkable posets which form a natural partition of all abelian ideals of a Borel subalgebra. Our main result is a nice uniform formula for the dimension of maximal ideals in these posets. We also obtain results on ad-nilpotent ideals which complete the analysis started in (J. Algebra 225 (2000) 130, 258 (2002) 112).     

Embedded associated primes of powers of square-free monomial ideals

An ideal I in a Noetherian ring R is normally torsion-free if Ass(R/I^t)=Ass(R/I) for all t≥1. We develop a technique to inductively study normally torsion-free square-free monomial ideals. In particular, we show that if a square-free monomial ideal I is minimally not normally torsion-free then the least power t such that I^t has embedded primes is bigger than β₁, where β₁ is the monomial grade of I, which is equal to the matching number of the hypergraph H(I) associated to I. If, in addition, I fails to have the packing property, then embedded primes of I^t do occur when t=β₁+1. As an application, we investigate how these results relate to a conjecture of Conforti and Cornuéjols.     

Principal Borel ideals and Gotzmann ideals

In this paper we characterize all principal Borel ideals with Borel generator up to degree 4 which are Gotzmann. We also classify principal Borel ideals with a Borel generator of degree d which are lexsegment and we describe the shadows of principal Borel ideals. Finally, we discuss the corresponding results for squarefree monomial ideals.Received: 10 May 2002     

The core of zero-dimensional monomial ideals

The core of an ideal is the intersection of all its reductions. We describe the core of a zero-dimensional monomial ideal I as the largest monomial ideal contained in a general reduction of I. This provides a new interpretation of the core in the monomial case as well as an efficient algorithm for computing it. We relate the core to adjoints and first coefficient ideals, and in dimension two and three we give explicit formulas.     

A monomial cycle basis on Koszul homology modules

We give a class of p-Borel principal ideals of a polynomial algebra over a field K for which the graded Betti numbers do not depend on the characteristic of K and the Koszul homology modules have a monomial cyclic basis.     

Codimension and projective dimension up to symmetry

Symmetric ideals in increasingly larger polynomial rings that form an ascending chain are investigated. We focus on the asymptotic behavior of codimensions and projective dimensions of ideals in such a chain. If the ideals are graded it is known that the codimensions grow eventually linearly. Here this result is extended to chains of arbitrary symmetric ideals. Moreover, the slope of the linear function is explicitly determined. We conjecture that the projective dimensions also grow eventually linearly. As part of the evidence we establish two non-trivial lower linear bounds of the projective dimensions for chains of monomial ideals. As an application, this yields Cohen–Macaulayness obstructions.     

Bounds on the regularity and projective dimension of ideals associated to graphs

In this paper, we give new upper bounds on the regularity of edge ideals whose resolutions are k-step linear; surprisingly, the bounds are logarithmic in the number of variables. We also give various bounds for the projective dimension of such ideals, generalizing other recent results. By Alexander duality, our results also apply to unmixed square-free monomial ideals of codimension two. We also discuss and connect these results to more classical topics in commutative algebra.     

Depths and Cohen–Macaulay properties of path ideals

Given a tree T on n vertices, there is an associated ideal I   of R[_x1,…,_xn]$R[x_1,\dots ,x_n]$ generated by all paths of a fixed length ? of T  . We classify all trees for which R/I$R/I$ is Cohen–Macaulay, and we show that an ideal I whose generators correspond to any collection of subtrees of T satisfies the König property. Since the edge ideal of a simplicial tree has this form, this generalizes a result of Faridi. Moreover, every square-free monomial ideal can be represented (non-uniquely) as a subtree ideal of a graph, so this construction provides a new combinatorial tool for studying square-free monomial ideals.     

A study of the lex plus powers conjecture

An {a₁,…,a_n}-lex plus powers ideal is a monomial ideal in I⊂k[x₁,…,x_n] which minimally contains the regular sequence x₁^a₁,…,x_n^a_n and such that whenever m∈R_t is a minimal generator of I and m′∈R_t is greater than m in lex order, then m′∈I. Conjectures of Eisenbud et al. and Charalambous and Evans predict that after restricting to ideals containing a regular sequence in degrees {a₁,…,a_n}, then {a₁,…,a_n}-lex plus powers ideals have extremal properties similar to those of the lex ideal. That is, it is proposed that a lex plus powers ideal should give maximum possible Hilbert function growth (Eisenbud et al.), and, after fixing a Hilbert function, that the Betti numbers of a lex plus powers ideal should be uniquely largest (Charalambous, Evans). The first of these assertions would extend Macaulay's theorem on Hilbert function growth, while the second improves the Bigatti, Hulett, Pardue theorem that lex ideals have largest graded Betti numbers. In this paper we explore these two conjectures. First we give several equivalent forms of each statement. For example, we demonstrate that the conjecture for Hilbert functions is equivalent to the statement that for a given Hilbert function, lex plus powers ideals have the most minimal generators in each degree. We use this result to prove that it is enough to show that lex plus powers ideals have the most minimal generators in the highest possible degree. A similar result holds for the stronger conjecture. In this paper we also prove that if the weaker conjecture holds, then lex plus powers ideals are guaranteed to have largest socles. This suffices to show that the two conjectures are equivalent in dimension ?3, which proves the monomial case of the conjecture for Betti numbers in those degrees. In dimension 2, we prove both conjectures outright.     

Cohen-Macaulay monomial ideals with given radical

We study the set of Cohen-Macaulay monomial ideals with a given radical. Among this set of ideals are the so-called Cohen-Macaulay modifications. Not all Cohen-Macaulay squarefree monomial ideals admit nontrivial Cohen-Macaulay modifications. It is shown that if there exists one such modification, then there exist indeed infinitely many.     

Trees, parking functions, syzygies, and deformations of monomial ideals

For a graph , we construct two algebras whose dimensions are both equal to the number of spanning trees of . One of these algebras is the quotient of the polynomial ring modulo certain monomial ideal, while the other is the quotient of the polynomial ring modulo certain powers of linear forms. We describe the set of monomials that forms a linear basis in each of these two algebras. The basis elements correspond to -parking functions that naturally came up in the abelian sandpile model. These ideals are instances of the general class of monotone monomial ideals and their deformations. We show that the Hilbert series of a monotone monomial ideal is always bounded by the Hilbert series of its deformation. Then we define an even more general class of monomial ideals associated with posets and construct free resolutions for these ideals. In some cases these resolutions coincide with Scarf resolutions. We prove several formulas for Hilbert series of monotone monomial ideals and investigate when they are equal to Hilbert series of deformations. In the appendix we discuss the abelian sandpile model.

     

Regularity of path ideals of gap free graphs

In this paper we study the Castelnuovo–Mumford regularity of the path ideals of finite simple graphs. We find new upper bounds for various path ideals of gap free graphs. In particular we prove that the t-path ideals of gap free, claw free and whiskered-$K_4$ free graphs have linear minimal free resolutions for all $t\ge 3$.     

On the associated primes and the depth of the second power of squarefree monomial ideals

We present combinatorial characterizations for the associated primes of the second power of squarefree monomial ideals and criteria for this power to have positive depth or depth greater than one.     

Mixed ladder determinantal varieties from two-sided ladders

We study the family of ideals defined by mixed size minors of two-sided ladders of indeterminates. We compute their Gröbner bases with respect to a skew-diagonal monomial order, then we use them to compute the height of the ideals. We show that these ideals correspond to a family of irreducible projective varieties, that we call mixed ladder determinantal varieties. We show that these varieties are arithmetically Cohen-Macaulay, and we characterize the arithmetically Gorenstein ones. Our main result consists in proving that mixed ladder determinantal varieties belong to the same G-biliaison class of a linear variety.     

Asymptotic resurgences for ideals of positive dimensional subschemes of projective space

Recent work of Ein–Lazarsfeld–Smith and Hochster–Huneke raised the containment problem of determining which symbolic powers of an ideal are contained in a given ordinary power of the ideal. Bocci–Harbourne defined a quantity called the resurgence to address this problem for homogeneous ideals in polynomial rings, with a focus on zero-dimensional subschemes of projective space. Here we take the first steps toward extending this work to higher dimensional subschemes. We introduce new asymptotic versions of the resurgence and obtain upper and lower bounds on them for ideals I$I$ of smooth subschemes, generalizing what is done in Bocci and Harbourne (2010)  [5]. We apply these bounds to ideals of unions of general lines in P^N${\mathbb{P}}^N$. We also pose a Nagata type conjecture for symbolic powers of ideals of lines in P³${\mathbb{P}}^3$.     

Prime Filtrations and Primary Decompositions of Modules

We give a new characterization for prime filtrations of an R-module M in terms of primary decomposition of the zero submodule of M. Using this characterization we prove that some classes of monomial ideals like generic and cogeneric monomial ideals are clean, pretty clean, or almost clean.     

Generalized multiplicities of edge ideals

We explore connections between the generalized multiplicities of square-free monomial ideals and the combinatorial structure of the underlying hypergraphs using methods of commutative algebra and polyhedral geometry. For instance, we show that the j-multiplicity is multiplicative over the connected components of a hypergraph, and we explicitly relate the j-multiplicity of the edge ideal of a properly connected uniform hypergraph to the Hilbert–Samuel multiplicity of its special fiber ring. In addition, we provide general bounds for the generalized multiplicities of the edge ideals and compute these invariants for classes of uniform hypergraphs.