On the computation of the Apéry set of numerical monoids and affine semigroups (Q896224)

This paper deals with submonoids \(S= \langle \mathbf{a}_1, \ldots, \mathbf{a}_k \rangle\) of \((\mathbb{N}^d,+)\). To such a monoid it is possible to associate the rational cone \(\mathrm{pos}(S) = \{ \sum_{i=1}^k \lambda_i \mathbf{a}_i \, : \, \lambda_i \in \mathbb{Q}^+\}\). Let \(\mathbb{Q}[S]= \mathbb{Q}[\mathbf{x}^\mathbf{a}\, : \, \mathbf{a}\in S] \subseteq \mathbb{Q}[x_1,\ldots, x_d]\) be the corresponding toric ring. Given a subset \(\Lambda \subseteq \{ \mathbf{a}_1, \ldots, \mathbf{a}_k\}\) such that \( \mathrm{pos}(S) = \mathrm{pos}( \Lambda)\), the \textit{Apéry set of \(S\) with respect to \(\Lambda\)} is defined as \[ \mathrm{Ap}(S,\Lambda) = \{ \mathbf{a} \in S \, : \, \mathbf{a}-\mathbf{b}\notin S \text{ for all } \mathbf{b} \in \Lambda \} \] in other words the set of exponents in the monomial \(\mathbb{Q}\)-basis of the factor ring \(\mathbb{Q}[S]/(\mathbf{x}^\mathbf{b} \, : \, \, \mathbf{b}\in \Lambda)\). The authors show how to compute \(\mathrm{Ap}(S,\Lambda)\) with Gröbner bases, using standard techniques from Elimination Theory (cf. Chapter 3, Section 3 in [\textit{D. A. Cox} et al., Ideals, varieties, and algorithms. An introduction to computational algebraic geometry and commutative algebra. 4th revised ed. 4th revised ed. Cham: Springer (2015; Zbl 1335.13001)]). In the case \(d=1, \Lambda =\{a_k\}\) the authors show how to compute the monomials in the socle of \(R=\mathbb{Q}[S]/(x^{a_k})\), that is \[ \left( 0 :_R (x^{a_1},\ldots, x^{a_{k-1}}) \right), \] by repeating the process above with \(k-1\) suitable elimination orders.