The diagonal subring and the Cohen-Macaulay property of a multigraded ring

Let be a multigraded ring defined over a local ring . This paper deals with the question how the Cohen-Macaulay property of is related to that of its diagonal subring . In the bigraded case we are able to give necessary and sufficient conditions for the Cohen-Macaulayness of . If are ideals of positive height, we can then compare the Cohen-Macaulay property of the multi-Rees algebra with the Cohen-Macaulay property of the usual Rees algebra . We also obtain a bound for the joint reduction numbers of two -primary ideals in the case the corresponding multi-Rees algebra is Cohen-Macaulay.