Polarizations of powers of graded maximal ideals (Q2065614)

The (standard) polarization process allows to construct from any monomial ideal \(I\subseteq K[\mathbf{x}_{N}]\) a squarefree monomial ideal \(J\) in a larger polynomial ring \(K[\mathbf{x}_{N\cup N'}]\), \(N\cap N'=\emptyset,\) such that \(K[\mathbf{x}_{N}]/I\) and \(K[\mathbf{x}_{N\cup N'}]/J\) have the same graded Betti numbers. Precisely, the standard \(K\)-algebra \(K[\mathbf{x}_N]/I\) can be obtained from \(K[\mathbf{x}_{N\cup N'}]/J\) by taking proper hyperplane sections given by linear forms of type \(x_{i'}-x_i\), for \(i'\in N'\) and \(i\in N\). Generalizing the standard construction, all the squarefree ideals \(J\) with such property are called \textit{ polarizations} of \(I\). It is therefore interesting to ask what conditions must be met for a squarefree monomial ideal to be a polarization of a given monomial ideal \(I.\) First, the authors find the answer to such question for the \(K[\mathbf{x}_N]/I\) artinian case, this is given in Corollary 2.6 in terms of \textit{separated model for \(I\)}. Then, many interesting conjectures and problems are discussed in Section 3. Moreover, the authors in Theorem 4.8, which is the main result of the paper, give a combinatorial characterization of the polarizations of the powers of the ideal \((x_1,\ldots,x_m)^n\) by looking at the spanning trees of suitable graphs. This result is then proved in Section 5. In Sections 6 and 9 the authors provide more details for the case of three variable \((m=3)\) and in Section 7 for the second power case \((n=2).\) It is also worth mentioning Theorem 8.1, which gives the generators of the Alexander duals of polarizations of maximal ideal powers.