Tight closure in graded rings (Q1384469)

This paper deals with the problem of computing the tight closure \(I^*\) of a homogeneous ideal \(I\) in a graded algebra \(R\) by giving bounds for the degree of the elements in \(I^*\setminus I\). The first main result is a general lower bound which says that any element of \(I^*\setminus I\) must have degree strictly larger than the smallest degree of the elements of \(I\). To prove this the author introduce a new method for studying tight closures which involves differential operators. For an \({\mathfrak m}\)-primary ideal \(I\), where \({\mathfrak m}\) is the maximal graded ideal of \(R\), two upper bounds for the degree of elements of \(I^*\setminus I\) are given. These bounds actually deal with the plus closure of \(I\), which is the ideal \(IR^+\cap R\) if \(R\) is a domain, where \(R^+\) denotes the integral closure of \(R\) in the algebraic closure of its fraction field. It is an open question whether or not the plus closure is the same as the tight closure, and the above results give further evidence for the equality. As an application the author gives a sufficient condition for \(R\) to be \(F\)-rational ( i.e. all parameter ideals of \(R\) are tightly closed) in terms of its \(a\)-invariant alone. From this it follows that \(F\)-rationality and pseudo-rationality are equivalent for two-dimensional standard graded algebras. Note that the characteristic zero case of this result was proved first by \textit{R. Fedder} [Trans. Am. Math. Soc. 340, No. 2, 655-668 (1993; Zbl 0792.14002)].