A stable version of Harbourne's conjecture and the containment problem for space monomial curves (Q2220185)

In the paper under review, the author studies the so-called containment problem. Given a radical ideal \(I\) in a domain \(R\), the \(n\)-th symbolic power of \(I\) is the ideal given by \[I^{(n)} = \bigcap_{P \in \mathrm{Min}(I)} (I^{n}R_{P}\cap R).\] This is the intersection of the minimal components of the ordinary power \(I^{n}\), where minimal stands for non-embedded rather than height minimal. If \(R\) is a polynomial ring, \(I^{(n)}\) is the set of functions that vanish up to order \(n\) on the variety defined by \(I\). The containment problem deals with the statements of the form \(I^{(a)} \subseteq I^{b}\): given an ideal \(I\) and a value \(b\), one would like to determine the smallest \(a\) for which \(I^{(a)} \subseteq I^{b}\). There are two main questions that build up the core of the paper under review. Question A (Huneke). If \(P\) is a prime of height \(2\) in a regular local ring, is \(P^{(3)} \subseteq P^2\)? The question above formulated around 2000 was later generalized by Harbourne. Question B (Harbourne). Let \(I\) be a radical ideal of big height \(h\) in a regular ring \(R\). Then for all \(n\geq 1\), one has \[I^{(hn - h+1)} \subseteq I^{n}.\] The first main result of the paper under review answers on Question A positively for a certain class of ideals. Theorem A. Let \(k\) be a field of characteristic different than \(3\), and consider \(R = k[[x,y,z]]\) or \(R = k[x,y,z]\). Let \(P\) be the prime ideal in \(R\) defining the space monomial curve \(x=t^a\), \(y=t^b\), and \(z=t^c\). Then \[P^{(3)} \subseteq P^2.\] The second main result proves the so-called stable version of Harbourne's conjecture. Theorem B. Let \(R\) be a regular ring containing a field, and let \(I\) be a radical ideal In \(R\) with big height \(h\). If \[I^{(hm-h)} \subset I^{m}\] for some \(m\geq 2\), then \[I^{(hk - h)} \subseteq I^{k}\] for all \(k \geq hm\).