On the Cohen-Macaulayness of the fiber cone of an ideal (Q1178051)

Let \(I\) be an ideal in a noetherian local ring \((R,{\mathfrak m})\). The paper is concerned with the fiber cone \(F(I)=\oplus^ \infty_{s=0}(I^ s/{\mathfrak m}I^ s)\) of \(I\). (Recall that the Krull dimension of \(F(I)\), which is called the analytic spread of \(I\), is equal to the minimal number of generators of every minimal reduction of \(I.)\) Most results in this paper are obtained under the hypothesis that there is a regular sequence \(x\), with \(I\) integral over \(x\) and \(I^ 2=xI\). In particular, the above hypotheses are sufficient to ensure that \(F(I)\) is Cohen-Macaulay. Also, if, in addition to the above hypotheses, one assumes that \(R\) is Cohen-Macaulay and \(I\) is \({\mathfrak m}\)-primary, then it is shown that \(R\) is normally flat along \(I\) (in the sense of Hironaka, that is, \(I^ s/I^{s+1}\) is a free \(R/I\)-module for all \(s)\) if and only if \(e(I)=\ell(R/I)(1+\mu(I)-\mu(x))\), where \(e\) is the multiplicity, \(\ell\) is the length, and \(\mu\) is the minimal number of generators. In particular, if the integer \(e(I)\) is prime, then \(R\) is normally flat along \(I\) if and only if \(I\) is a complete intersection or \(I={\mathfrak m}\).