On lucky ideals for Gröbner basis computations (Q1209625)

Let \(R\) be a principal ideal ring, \(R[x]\) the polynomial ring in \(n\) variables over \(R\) and \(I\) an ideal in \(R[x]\). Intuitively, an ideal \(P\) of \(R\) is \textit{lucky} for \(I\) if we do not loose too much information on Gröbner bases of \(I\), when we project \(I\) to \((R/P)[x]\). One is led to this concept when trying to apply modular or \(p\)-adic methods in order to control the possibly enormous growth of coefficients during the computation of a Gröbner basis of a given ideal in the polynomial ring in \(n\) variables over the field of rational numbers. Let \(F\) be a Gröbner basis of \(I\). The author shows that \(F\) gives direct and full information about lucky ideals for \(I\), and gets ``projection'' and ``reconstruction'' results of a paper. As an application, a short proof of the main result of a paper by \textit{F. Winkler} [J. Symb. Comput. 6, No. 2/3, 287-304 (1988; Zbl 0669.13009)] is given. Complexity aspects are not considered.