Measuring the non-Gorenstein locus of Hibi rings and normal affine semigroup rings (Q2330432)

Let \(R\) be a graded Cohen-Macaulay algebra over a field \(k\), with canonical module \(\omega_R\). The trace of the canonical module is the following ideal of \(R\) \[ \mathrm{tr}(\omega_R) = \sum_{\varphi \in \mathrm{Hom}_R(\omega_R,R) }\varphi(\omega_R). \] This ideal measures the non-Gorenstein locus of \(R\), in the sense that for \(\wp\in \mathrm{Spec}(R)\) the ring \(R_\wp\) is Gorenstein if and only if \(\mathrm{tr}(\omega_R) \not\subseteq \wp\). For instance, \(R\) is Gorenstein on the punctured spectrum if and only if \(\mathrm{tr}(\omega_R)\) contains a power of the maximal ideal. The paper under review studies the trace of the canonical module for classes of rings. Let \(R_1, \ldots, R_m\) be standard graded Cohen-Macaulay algebras, and let \(R = R_1 \sharp\cdots \sharp R_m\) denote their Segre products. The authors describe the relation between \(\mathrm{tr}(\omega_R)\) and \(\mathrm{tr}(\omega_{R_1}), \ldots, \mathrm{tr}(\omega_{R_m})\). In particular, \(\mathrm{tr}(\omega_R)\) is explicitly computed when each \(R_i\) is Gorenstein, and it is proved that \(R\) is Gorenstein on the punctured spectrum if and only if every \(R_i\) is. The Hibi ring \(k[P]\) of a poset \(P\) is the toric ring generated by monomials corresponding to poset ideals of \(P\). Since \(k[P]\) is the Segre product of the Hibi ring \(k[P_i]\) where \(P_i\) are the connected components of \(P\), the authors are able to classify Hibi rings that are Gorenstein on the punctured spectrum in terms of the components of \(P\). In particular, for a connected poset \(P\), the Hibi ring \(k[P]\) is Gorenstein if and only if it is Gorenstein on the punctured spectrum. Finally, the authors consider normal simplicial semigroup rings \(R\). For such toric rings, the canonical module \(\omega_R\) is determined by a cone \(\tau\). The author prove that the codimension of \(\mathrm{tr}(\omega_R)\) is bounded below by the number of extremal rays of \(\tau\) possessing integral points, and this fact is used to formulate a criterion for \(R\) to be Gorenstein on the punctured spectrum.