Almost regular sequences and Betti numbers

DOI10.1353/AJM.2000.0025MaRDI QIDQ4504242zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Authors Annetta G. Aramova, Jürgen Herzog

Publication date 21 December 2000

Published in American Journal of Mathematics (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/american_journal_of_mathematics/toc/ajm122.4.html

almost regular sequence Cohen-Macaulay property extremal Betti numbers face ring simplicial complexes

(Co)homology of commutative rings and algebras (e.g., Hochschild, André-Quillen, cyclic, dihedral, etc.) (13D03) Commutative rings defined by monomial ideals; Stanley-Reisner face rings; simplicial complexes (13F55) Simplicial sets and complexes in algebraic topology (55U10)

Review text

The operation of algebraic shifting, introduced by Kalai, assigns to a simplicial complex \(\Delta\) a combinatorially simpler complex \(\Delta^s\). Algebraically, the construction can be understood as follows: The defining ideal of the exterior face ring \(K\{\Delta^s\}\) is the generic initial ideal of the defining ideal of \(K\{\Delta\}\). (Thus \(\Delta^s\) may depend on \(K.)\) In sections 1 and 2 the authors introduce the concept of almost regular sequence and use it to prove the theorem by \textit{D. Bayer}, \textit{H. Charalambous} and \textit{S. Popescu} [J. Algebra 221, No. 2, 497-512 (1999; Zbl 0946.13008)] according to which the extremal Betti numbers of \(F/N\), \(F\) a finite free graded module over a polynomial ring over a field \(K\), \(N\) a graded submodule, do not change in position or value if one replaces \(N\) by \(\text{gin}(N)\). Sections 3, 4 and 5 are devoted to the proof of the equation \(\text{reg}(F/N)= \text{reg} (F/\text{gin} (N))\) where \(F\) is now a free graded module over the exterior algebra \(E\) of a finite \(K\)-vector space \(V\). This is the exterior algebra analogue of a theorem of Bayer-Stillman for modules over the polynomial ring. After a discussion of simplicial complexes and Cartan cohomology in section 6, the authors give an exterior algebra analogue of the theorem of Eagon-Reiner in section 7. It connects the Cohen-Macaulay property of a simplicial complex with the linearity of the graded free resolution of the face ring \(K\{\Delta^*\}\) of the Alexander dual \(\Delta^*\). As a consequence one then obtains Kalai's theorem by which the following conditions are equivalent: \(\Delta\) is Cohen-Macaulay over \(K\); \(\Delta^s\) is Cohen-Macaulay over \(K\); \(\Delta^s\) is pure. The main result of the last section is that the extremal Betti numbers do not change under the passage from \(K[\Delta]\) to \(K[\Delta^s]\), a surprising fact if one takes into account that \(\Delta^2\) is constructed in the exterior algebra.

Recommendations

Cited in

(35)

This page was built for publication: Almost regular sequences and Betti numbers

Report a bug (only for logged in users!)Click here to report a bug for this page (MaRDI item Q4504242)