A remark on regularity of powers and products of ideals (Q2363262)

Let \(R=K[x_1,\dots,x_n]\) be a polynomial ring and \(I\) be a homogeneous ideal of \(R\). \textit{S. D. Cutkosky} et al. [Compos. Math. 118, No. 3, 243--261 (1999; Zbl 0974.13015)] and, independently, \textit{V. Kodiyalam} [Proc. Am. Math. Soc. 128, No. 2, 407--411 (2000; Zbl 0929.13004)] proved that the Castelnuovo-Mumford regularity \(\mathrm{reg}(I^{a}) (a\in \mathbb{N})\) is a linear function of \(a\) for large \(a\). In addition, Cutkosky, Herzog and Trung [loc. cit.] asserted that by the same method \(\mathrm{reg}(I_1^{a_1}\dots I_m^{a_m})\) is a linear function in \(a=(a_1,\dots,a_m)\in\mathbb{N}^m\) if \(a_i\gg 0\) for every \(i\). In this paper under review, the authors show that this is actually the case when each ideal \(I_i\) is generated by polynomials of a given degree. They also give examples showing that the asymptotic linearity is false in general.