Annihilators of local cohomology modules and simplicity of rings of differential operators (Q1992185)

The paper under review studies annihilators of local cohomology modules; in particular the authors are concerned with the question of how to deduce vanishing of such modules from the fact that they admit an additional structure as modules over rings of differential operators (i. e., that local cohomology modules may be regarded as solutions of systems of partial differential equations). The paper gives partial answers to several open questions in this area. The main obtained results (that do not exhaust the content of the paper) are as follows. \begin{itemize} \item[1.] Let \(K\) be any field and let \(R\) be a commutative Noetherian ring. Suppose that either \(R\) is a regular ring affine over \(K\), or \(R\) is a formal power series ring over \(K\), or that \(R\) is a regular ring, affinoid over \(K\) (that is, \(R\) is isomorphic to \(K\{x_{1},\dots, x_{n}\}/I\) where \(K\{x_{1},\dots, x_{n}\}\) is the convergent power series ring over \(K\) and \(I\) is an ideal of \(K\{x_{1},\dots, x_{n}\}\)) and \(K\) is an infinite complete valued ring. Then the ring \(D_{K}(R)\) of \(K\)-linear differential operators over \(R\) is simple. \item[2.] Let \(K\) be a field, \(R\) a commutative Noetheriam ring, and \(I\) an ideal of \(R\). Suppose that \(R\) is either a regular ring, affine or affinoid over \(K\), or that \(R\) is regular local ring containing \(K\). Then \(H_{I}^{i}(R)\neq 0\) if and only if \((0:_{R}H_{I}^{i}(R))=0\). \item[3.] (The authors consider this theorem as the central result of the work). Let \(R\) be either a smooth \(\mathbb{Z}\)-algebra, or a formal power series ring over \(\mathbb{Z}\), let \(I\) be an ideal of \(R\), let \(p\) be a prime number, and fix \(i\in\mathbb{N}\). Then (i) If the multiplication by \(p\), \(H_{I}^{i}(R)\xrightarrow{p}H_{I}^{i}(R)\), is not injective, then \((0:_{R}H_{I}^{i}(R))\subseteq pR\), and equality holds if and only if this multiplication is the zero map. (ii) If the multiplication by \(p\), \(H_{I}^{i}(R)\xrightarrow{p}H_{I}^{i}(R)\), is not surjective, then \((0:_{R}H_{I}^{i}(R))\subseteq pR\). (iii) Suppose that, in addition, \(R\) satisfies the \textit{star assumption} (that is, for any infinite set of pairwise different prime integers \(\{p_{i}\}_{i\in I}\) one has \(\bigcap_{i\in I}p_{i}R=0\)) and there are infinitely many prime integers \(p\) such that the multiplication by \(p\) on \(H_{I}^{i}(R)\) is not surjective. Then \(H_{I}^{i}(R)\neq 0\) if and only if \((0:_{R}H_{I}^{i}(R)) = 0\). \end{itemize}