Symbolic powers of monomial curves (Q1121340)

Motivated by the classical problem whether every affine algebraic curve (over an algebraically closed field k) is a set theoretic complete intersection, and by Cowsik's lemma that finite generation of the symbolic Rees algebra implies at least local set theoretic complete intersection, the author studies a general approach for producing such a generating set and demonstrates its effectiveness for monomial curves \((t^{d_ 1},...,t^{d_ n}).\) Given a noetherian ring \(S_ 0\), and ideals \(S_ 0\supset S_ 1\supset..\). (in particular say \(S_ 0=k[X_ 1,...,X_ n]\) with \(\deg (X_ i)=d_ i\) and \(S_ j=P^{(j)}\) the j-th symbolic power of a prime P) define \(S=\oplus_{j\geq 0}S_ jX^ j \subset S_ 0[X]\). If R is an \(S_ 0\)-subalgebra of S, then there is an ideal \(\tau_ R\) of ``twisted elements'' and the extension \(R[\tau_ RX]\subset S\) remains finitely generated if R is. If iteration of this extension stabilizes, then S is obtained as a finitely generated \(S_ 0\)-algebra. In case \(char(k)=0\) and P is the ideal of a monomial curve, the author describes \(\tau_ R\) for any bigraded subalgebra R of \(S=\oplus_{j\geq 0}P^{(j)}X^ j \) that contains PX. Next he gives a procedure (ultimately algorithmic as all the computations can be done using Gröbner bases) for constructing \(R[\tau_ RX]\); and finally, he shows that the curve \((t^ 4,t^ 6,t^ 7,t^ 9)\) is a set theoretic complete intersection by constructing its symbolic Rees algebra.