Trace ideals of canonical modules, annihilators of Ext modules, and classes of rings close to being Gorenstein (Q2031587)

Let \(R\) be a commutative ring, and \(M\) an \(R\)-module. The trace ideal \(\mathrm{tr}(M)\) of \(M\) is the sum of images of all \(R\)-homomorphisms from \(M\) to \(R\). A Cohen-Macaulay local ring \((R,\mathfrak{m})\) with a canonical module \(\omega\) is called nearly Gorenstein if \(\mathrm{tr}(\omega)\) contains \(\mathfrak{m}\). A Cohen-Macaulay local ring \((R,\mathfrak{m})\) of Krull dimension at most \(1\) is called weakly almost Gorenstein if it has a canonical module \(\omega\) and an exact sequence \[R\rightarrow \omega \rightarrow (R/\mathfrak{m})^{\oplus n} \rightarrow 0\] for some \(n\). The authors study trace ideals of canonical modules by characterizing them in terms of annihilators of certain Ext modules. More specifically, they prove that if \((R,\mathfrak{m})\) is a \(d\)-dimensional Cohen-Macaulay local ring with a canonical module \(\omega\), then \[ \mathrm{tr}(\omega)=\mathrm{ann}_{R}\left(\mathrm{Ext}_{R}^{>0}\left(\omega,\mathrm{Mod}(R)\right)\right)=\mathrm{ann}_{R}\left(\mathrm{Ext}_{R}^{1}\left(\mathrm{CM}(R),R\right)\right). \] Then they apply their results to study near Gorensteinness and weakly almost Gorensteinness.