Cohen-Macaulay criteria for projective monomial curves via Gröbner bases (Q2000792)

The present paper provides new characterizations based on Gröbner bases for the Cohen-Macaulay property of a projective monomial curve. The projective monomial curve \(\overline{C}(\mathbf{a})\) is called arithmetically Cohen-Macaulay if its vanishing ideal \(I(\mathbf{a})^h\) is a Cohen-Macaulay ideal. Arithmetically Cohen-Macaulay curves are not rare among projective monomial curves [\textit{T. Vu}, J. Algebra 418, 66--90 (2014; Zbl 1317.13037)]. A main result of the present paper states that \(\overline{C}(\mathbf{a})\) is arithmetically Cohen-Macaulay if and only if the initial ideal \(\mathrm{in}(I(\mathbf{a})^h)\), respectively \(\mathrm{in}(I(\mathbf{a}))\) is a Cohen-Macaulay ideal, see Theorem 2,2, which gives other equivalent properties. The monomial curves associated to a sequence \(\mathbf{a}\) and its dual \(\mathbf{a}'\) are isomorphic. Section 3 of the paper focuses on the ideals \(I(\mathbf{a})\) and \(I(\mathbf{a}')\) and their reduced Gröbner bases, giving criteria for the arithmetical Cohen-Macaulay property based on the relations between the reduced Gröbner bases of \(I(\mathbf{a})\) and \(I(\mathbf{a}')\) and their initial ideals, see Theorems 3.2 and 3.6. The paper finishes by applying Theorem 2.2 to test the arithmetically Cohen-Macaulay property for some families of monomial curves in \(\mathbb{P}^3\) that have appeared in the literature.