A rigidity result for highest order local cohomology modules

Let M be a finitely generated faithful module over a noetherian ring R of dimension d < ￥ \infty and let \mathfrak a \subseteqq R {\mathfrak a} \subseteqq R be an ideal. We describe the (finite) set Supp_R(H_{\mathfrak a}^d (M)) = Ass_R(H_{\mathfrak a}^d (M)) \textrm{Supp}_R(H_{\mathfrak a}^d (M)) = \textrm{Ass}_R(H_{\mathfrak a}^d (M)) of primes associated to the highest local cohomology module H_{\mathfrak a}^d (M) H_{\mathfrak a}^d (M) in terms of the local formal behaviour of \mathfrak a {\mathfrak a} . If R is integral and of finite type over a field, Supp_R(H_{\mathfrak a}^d (M)) \textrm{Supp}_R(H_{\mathfrak a}^d (M)) is the set of those closed points of X = Spec(R) whose fibre under the normalization morphism n: X￠? X \nu : X' \rightarrow X contains points which are isolated in n^-1(Spec(R/\mathfrak a)) \nu^{-1}(\textrm{Spec}(R/{\mathfrak a})) .