Bounding the degrees of the defining equations of Rees rings for certain determinantal and Pfaffian ideals (Q2144394)

In this paper, the authors study the defining ideals of the Rees algebras of certain classes determinantal ideals. They focus on providing new conditions that characterize the \(G_s\) property for these classes of ideals and determining bounds on the degrees in which the ideals of equations of the Rees algebras are generated. More specifically, the authors focus on three types of ideals. For each type, they refer to the maximal possible height of an ideal of that type as the generic height for that class (based on the fact that a generic matrix of each form achieves the maximal height). They develop their results in parallel for ideals of generic height that are generated by all: \begin{itemize} \item[(a)] \(t \times t\) minors of a matrix; \item[(b)] \(t \times t\) minors of a symmetric matrix; and \item[(c)] \(2t \times 2t\) Pfaffians of an alternating matrix. \end{itemize} Note that the matrices used need not be generic, nor have linear entries, for these ideal classes. For each of these three classes of ideals of generic height, the authors characterize the \(G_s\) property in terms of heights of smaller minors/Pfaffians of the matrix associated to the ideal. Note that the presentation matrix of the ideal is not necessary using this approach. Although the matrices used to form the ideals need not be generic, when they are, the authors determine the maximum \(s\) for which the ideals satisfy \(G_s\) based on the sizes of the generic matrices. The technique central to the results bounding the degrees of generators of the ideal of equations of the Rees algebra of an ideal in one of the three classes is to use the height conditions to control the specialization process when passing from the resolution of a power of a generic determinantal or Pfaffian ideal to the corresponding power of an ideal in one of the three studied classes. Note that under this new approach, the typical assumption that the Rees algebra be Cohen-Macaulay is no longer necessary. The authors apply the specialization technique to recover known results and determine new ones regarding when ideals in the three classes are of linear type or of fiber type.