Squarefree monomial ideals that fail the persistence property and non-increasing depth (Q2352390)

Let \(I\) be an ideal in a polynomial ring \(R\). Then \(I\) satisfies the \textit{persistence property} if the sets of associated primes of powers of \(I\) form a chain, that is, \({\text{Ass}}(R/I^t) \subseteq {\text{Ass}}(R/I^{t+1})\) for all \(t \geq 1.\) In [\textit{C. A. Francisco} et al., Discrete Math. 310, No. 15--16, 2176--2182 (2010; Zbl 1225.05096)], Francisco, Hà and Van Tuyl conjectured that for any finite simple graph that is critically \(s\)-chromatic, there is a subset of the vertices such that the expansion of the graph on those vertices is critically \(s+1\)-chromatic. They also showed that when the conjecture holds for all \(s\), the cover ideal of the graph satisfies the persistence property. In [\textit{T. Kaiser} et al., J. Comb. Theory, Ser. A 123, 239--251 (2014; Zbl 1281.05062)], Kaiser, Stehlík, and Škrekovski gave a family of graphs that fails to satisfy the conjecture when \(s=3\). Direct computations were used to verify that the cover ideal of the first of the graphs in this family provides an example of a square-free monomial ideal that fails the persistence property. In addition, the depth function of this ideal, that is, the numerical function \(f(t)={\text{depth}}(R/I^t)\), fails to be non-increasing, negatively answering a question of \textit{J. Herzog} and \textit{T. Hibi} [J. Algebra 291, No. 2, 534--550 (2005; Zbl 1096.13015)]. The main result of this paper is a proof that the cover ideals of all of the members of Kaiser, Stehlík, and Škrekovski's family of examples fail to satisfy the persistence property and also provide counterexamples to the non-increasing depth property. The family of examples is formed by taking the Cartesian product of a complete graph on \(3\) vertices, \(K_3\), with a path of length \(q-1\), \(P_{q}\), where \(q \geq 4\), and then connecting the vertices in the first and last copies of \(K_3\) with a twist. The authors show that if \(J\) is the cover ideal of one of these graphs, then \(\mathfrak{m} \in {\text{Ass}}(R/J^3)\) but \(\mathfrak{m} \not\in {\text{Ass}}(R/J^4)\), which shows that the sets of associated primes do not form a chain and that \({\text{depth}}(R/J^3)=0\) while \({\text{depth}}(R/J^3)>0\). The authors note that the construction of the family of examples can naturally be generalized by using \(K_p\) for any \(p\geq 3\). However, they show that these graphs are not critically \(p\)-chromatic when \(p>3\).