A new depth and the annihilation of local cohomology modules

Let J I be two proper ideals of a commutative Noetherian ring and M a finitely generated module. Strong relative depth is defined and characterized. It is proved that this depth is just the maximum integer n such that can be annihilated by some power of J for all i ≤ n. It turns out that the local-global principle for the annihilation of local cohomology modules can be formulated as a natural property of this new depth. Received: 28 July 2006