Gröbner deformations, connectedness and cohomological dimension (Q1048956)

The paper is concerned with various connectedness properties. For a Noetherian topological space \(T\) let \(c(T) = \min \{ \dim Z : Z \subset T, T \text{ is closed, } T \setminus Z \text{ is disconneceted} \}\) denote the connectivity dimension of \(T.\) First let \(R \) denote a commutative Noetherian ring. For an \(R\)-module \(M\) write \(c(M)\) instead of \(c(\text{Supp} M)\). In case of an ideal \(\mathfrak a\) of \(R,\) a complete local ring, Grothendieck's Connectedness Theorem [SGA 2, Sém. Géom. Alg., (1962; Zbl 0159.50402)], states that \[ c(R/\mathfrak a) \geq \min \{ c(R), \text{sdim} R -1\} - \text{ara}\,\mathfrak a, \] where \(\text{sdim}\) denotes the subdimension and \(\text{ara}\) is the arithmetical rank. As a first main result the author of the present paper proves an improvement by replacing \(\text{ara} \mathfrak a\) by the cohomological dimension \(\text{cd} \mathfrak a\). This result has various applications previously known in the literature). Another main feature of the paper is the comparison of the connectivity dimension \(c(P/I)\) for an ideal \(I\) in a polynomial ring \(P\) with that of any initial ideal of \(I.\) A theorem of \textit{M. Kalkbrener} and \textit{B. Sturmfels} [Adv. Math. 116, No. 2, 365--376 (1995; Zbl 0877.13025)], says that for \(I\) a prime ideal and \(<\) any monomial order that \(P/\text{Rad}(in_{<}(I))\) is equidimensional and connected in codimension 1. The author of the present paper proves the following sharpening \[ c(P/in_{<}(I)) \geq \min \{ c(P/I), \dim P/I -1\}, \] where \(I\) denotes an arbitrary ideal. In order to prove this result he follows the approach of \textit{C. Huneke} and \textit{A. Taylor} [Lectures on local cohomology. Interactions between homotopy theory and algebra. Summer school, University of Chicago, IL, USA, July 26--August 6, 2004. Providence, RI: American Mathematical Society (AMS). Contemporary Mathematics 436, 51-99 (2007; Zbl 1127.13300)], where a proof of the Theorem of Kalkbrener and Sturmfels is given that is based on local cohomology. In particular the author needs a certain number of refinements for his applications of local cohomology, in particular the study of cohomological dimension. As a consequence there is also a generalization of \textit{R. Hartshorne}'s connectedness result [Am. J. Math. 84, 497--508 (1962; Zbl 0108.16602)].