Regularity of powers of quadratic sequences with applications to binomial ideals (Q2201064)

The main result of the paper under review is an upper bound for the regularity of the powers of an ideal of a polynomial ring over a field, generated by a homogeneous quadratic sequence (Theorem 2.8). Quadratic sequences were defined in [\textit{K. N. Raghavan}, Trans. Am. Math. Soc. 343, No. 2, 727--747 (1994; Zbl 0819.13004)]. A quadratic sequence is a \textit{set} of elements of a Noetherian ring, indexed by a poset. The notion generalizes weak \(d\)-sequences, as defined in [\textit{C. Huneke}, J. Algebra 68, 471--509 (1981; Zbl 0473.13006)]. The term \textit{quadratic} refers to the degree of the first syzigies of the ideal generated by the set. To prove Theorem 2.8, the authors use Theorem 5.4 in [Raghavan, loc. cit.], to which an alternative proof is given. Roughly, this result states that if \(R\) is a graded algebra (over a Noetherian ring) and \(I\) is an ideal generated by a homogeneous quadratic sequence then there exists a filtration \[ R/I = M_0 \supset M_1 \supset \cdots \supset M_k=(0), \] (related) ideals \(V_i\) and integers \(d_i\geq 0\), such that \(M_i/M_{i+1}\simeq [R/V_i](-d_i)\). As mentioned in the article, applications of Theorem 2.8 rely on a good knowledge of the structure of related ideals, \(V_i\), which, at present, is best understood for ideals generated by \(d\)-sequences. After rephrasing Theorem 2.8 for this particular case, the authors spend the second half of the paper (sections 3 and 4) applying the main result to binomial edge ideals and to parity binomial edge ideals. They obtain exact values of the regularity of the powers of these ideals in some special families of graphs (star graphs, cyles) as well as bounds for this invariant in terms of combinatorial data.