Bounds on degrees of projective schemes (Q1898136)

Computational complexity issues in algebraic geometry necessitate two refinements in the notion of degree of a projective scheme, namely, the geometric degree and the arithmetic degree which involve isolated and embedded components. Given a homogeneous ideal \(I\) in \(S : = k [x_1, \ldots, x_n]\), \(k\) any field, a fundamental problem is to bound these refined degrees in terms of the generators of \(I\). The main results in this paper give bounds for the arithmetic degree of a monomial ideal and for the geometric degree of an arbitrary ideal. One novelty of independent interest is a combinatorial construction (called standard pairs) for these degrees in the case of monomial ideals. There are applications to the effective division problem and to extensions of Bezout's theorem.