Koszul binomial edge ideals of pairs of graphs (Q1794075)

An ideal \(I\) in a ring \(R\) is said to be \textit{Koszul} if \(R/I\) is Koszul, that is, its residue field has a linear resolution. It is well-known that in a polynomial ring, Koszul ideals are generated by quadrics and that any ideal with a quadratic Gröbner basis is Koszul. This paper further examines these concepts for binomial edge ideals of a pair of graphs \(G_1,G_2\) with vertices \(v_1, \ldots, v_m\) and \(w_1, \ldots, w_n\) respectively. Such ideals are generated by selected \(2 \times 2\) minors of a generic matrix. Starting with a generic \(m \times n\) matrix, a \(2 \times 2\) minor determined by rows \(i,j\) and columns \(k,l\) is a generator of \(I\) if and only if \(\{v_i,v_j\}\) is an edge of \(G_1\) and \(\{w_k,w_l\}\) is an edge of \(G_2\). The main result of this paper gives both an algebraic and a graph theoretic condition that are equivalent to the Koszul property for binomial edge ideals of graph pairs. More specifically, the authors show that such an ideal is Koszul if and only if \(G_1\) is closed (also known as a proper interval graph) and \(G_2\) is complete (or vice versa), or equivalently that the homogeneous maximal ideal has linear quotients with respect to an appropriate order.