Integrally closed ideals in regular local rings of dimension two (Q659887)

Let \(I\) be an integrally closed \(\mathfrak{m}\)-primary ideal of a two-dimensional regular local ring \((R,\mathfrak{m}, k)\). By Zariski's unique factorization theorem, the ideal \(I\) factors as \(I^{s_1}_1\cdots I^{s_h}_h\), where the \(s_i\) are positive integers and the \(I_i\) are distinct simple integrally closed ideals. For each integer \(i\) with \(1\leq i\leq h\), let \(V_i\) denote the unique Rees valuation ring associated with \(I_i\), and let \(v_i\) denote the Rees valuation associated with \(V_i\). Assume that the field \(k\) is relatively algebraically closed in the residue field \(k(v_i)\) of \(V_i\). Let \(J = (a, b)R\) be a reduction of \(I\) and let \(\overline{(a/b)_{v_i}}\) denote the image of \(a/b\) in the residue field \(k(v_i)\) of \(V_i\). In the paper under review the authors prove that \([k(v_i):k(\overline{(a/b)_{v_i}})]=s_i\). Assume that \((e, f )R\) is a reduction of \(I_i\). The second main result in this paper is to prove that there exists a minimal generating set \(\{ge^{s_i} , ge^{s_i-1}f, \dots , gf^{s_i}, \xi_{s_i+1}, \dots , \xi_r\}\) for \(I\), where \(g\in\prod_{j\neq i} I^{s_j}_j\) with \(gV_i=(\prod_{j\neq i} I^{s_j}_j)V_i\) and \(v_i(\xi_p)>v_i(I)\) for \(p\) with \(s_i+1\leq p\leq r\). There exists \(Q_i\in \mathrm{Min}(\mathfrak{m}R[It])\) such that \(V_i = R[It]_{Q_i}\cap{\mathcal Q}(R)\). As the third main result it is proved that the quotient ring \(R[It]/Q_i\) is normal Cohen-Macaulay with minimal multiplicity at its maximal homogeneous ideal with this multiplicity being \(s_i\). In particular, \(R[It]/Q_i\) is regular if and only if \(s_i = 1\).