Powers of graphs \& applications to resolutions of powers of monomial ideals (Q2146909)

For a graph \(G\) with vertex set \(\{v_0,v_1,\ldots,v_q\}\) and a positive integer \(r\), let \[ \mathcal N_r=:\{(a_0,a_1,\ldots, a_q)\mid 0\leq a_i\in \mathbb Z, \,\,{\small \sum}_{i=0}^qa_i=r\}. \] The power graph \(G^r\) is defined on the vertex set \[ \{\mathbf{v}^a=:v_0^{a_0}v_1^{a_1}\cdots v_q^{a_q}\mid \mathbf{a}=(a_0,a_1,\ldots,a_q)\in \mathcal N_r\}, \] where \(\mathbf{v}^a\) is adjacent to \(\mathbf{v}^b\) if there exist \(w\in V(G^{r-1})\) and \(\{v_j,v_i\}\in E(G)\) such that \(\mathbf{v}^a=wv_j\) and \(\mathbf{v}^b=wv_i\). This paper is concerned with the question of whether geometric structures such as cell complexes can be used to describe the minimal free resolutions of all powers of a monomial ideal. For square-free monomial ideals of projective dimension one, a full answer is provided by constructing a family of (cubical) cell complexes whose 1-skeletons are powers of a graph that supports the resolution of the ideal. The main result is the following Theorem 4.9 Let \(I\) be a square-free monomial ideal of projective dimension one, and \(r \) a positive integer. Then the power \(I^r\) has a cellular minimal free resolution supported on the polyhedral cell complex \(\overline {G^r}\). As consequences, the projective dimension of \(I^r\) (and, of \(I^r/I^{r+1}\) ) and the Betti numbers of \(I^r\) are determined, by combinations of \(r\) and number of minimal square-free monomial generators of \(I\).