Pathology in divisor class groups of hypersurfaces (Q1074668)

Some pathological properties of a ring hypersurface \(A=R/(f)\) are studied. The author establishes a method for representing the reflexive modules of rank two over a regular local ring R as divisorial ideals in normal quadratic extensions of R. He exhibits an ideal such that its symbolic squares can need an arbitrarily large number of generators. He also investigates the number of generators of the inverse of a divisorial ideal. He points the difference between normal and nonnormal extensions and obtains some properties of the divisor class group of a normal extension of an UFD. It is deduced that there is an obstruction in obtaining a Noether normalization theorem for normal extensions. The paper contains interesting examples and applications.