The diagonal subalgebra of a blow-up algebra (Q1380058)

The authors study Cohen-Macaulayness and normality of diagonal subalgebras of blow-up algebras. The normality property is inherited by every diagonal subalgebra. Moreover, the authors give an explicit description of the integral closure of a subalgebra in terms of the integral closure of the algebra. Cohen-Macaulayness does not have such an explicit formula, even in the case of Segre product of two Cohen-Macaulay graded algebras. For the Cohen-Macaulay property the authors treat some few interesting classes of ideals: complete intersections and determinantal ideals generated by the maximal minors of a generic matrix. The authors explicitly describe the diagonals for which the Cohen-Macaulay property holds and also those for which it fails. The techniques they use are a reduction to Segre products and ``Cohen-Macaulay dévissage'', a modification of a result of Eagon-Hochster [\textit{M.Hochster} and \textit{J. A. Eagon}, Am. J. Math. 93, 1020-1058 (1971; Zbl 0244.13012)].