Generic and cogeneric monomial ideals (Q1569837)

The paper under review is a theoretical study of genericity properties of monomial ideals. The authors use a more inclusive definition of genericity than the one introduced by \textit{D. Bayer, I. Peeva} and \textit{B. Sturmfels} [Math. Res. Lett. 5, No. 1-2, 31-46 (1998; Zbl 0909.13010)]. The new definition has the advantage of being easily expressed in several equivalent ways. The first section of the paper is devoted to characterizations of generic monomial ideals. Next one studies the primary decomposition of a generic monomial ideal. It is shown that the associated primes of such an ideal satisfy a saturated chain condition. In the third section it is established the connection between the genericity of monomial ideals and the genericity for lattice ideals introduced by \textit{I. Peeva} and \textit{B. Sturmfels} [J. Am. Math. Soc. 11, No. 2, 363-373 (1998; Zbl 0905.13005)]. The main result of this part asserts the genericity of reverse lexicographic initial ideals of generic lattice ideals. The last section is devoted to the study of cogeneric monomial ideals. Again the definition given in the paper under review is slightly different from the one found in the previous literature. It is obtained an explicit description of the minimal free resolution of a cogeneric monomial ideal. Consequently Cohen-Macaulayness for cogeneric ideals is characterized combinatorially. This interesting paper contains in addition several open problems and conjectures.