Some remarks on factorial quotient rings (Q2270579)

The construction of non-trivial factorial domains using methods of algebraic geometry has a long and rich history. Based on some results of \textit{M. Demazure} [Anneaux gradués normaux, séminaire ``Singularites des surfaces'', École Polytechnique, Paris 1979; (Zbl 0686.14005)], a very general construction was given by \textit{L. Robbiano} [Factorial and almost factorial schemes in weighted projective spaces, Lect. Notes Math. 1092, Springer Verlag, Heidelberg (1984; Zbl 0564.14021)]. The main result of the paper under review is to give a characterization of the factorial rings that can be obtained via Robbiano's construction. A similar, more general structure theorem was proved by \textit{M. Tomari} and \textit{K. Watanabe} [Cyclic covers of normal graded rings, Kodai Math. J. 24, 436--457 (2001; Zbl 1078.14512)] under slight additional assumptions about the characteristic of the base field. In the last part of the paper the author uses his results to construct an algorithm for computing the factorization of an element in an UFD \(K[x_1,\dots, x_n]/I\) if \(I\) is a homogeneous ideal. This algorithm uses only operations in \(K[x_1,\dots,x_n]\). If \(I\) is a principal ideal, an alternative method is given, too.