Prime filtrations of monomial ideals and polarizations (Q2370261)

\textit{A. Dress} [Beitr. Algebra Geom. 34, No. 1, 45--55 (1993; Zbl 0780.52012)] showed that a simplicial complex is shellable if and only if its Stanley-Reisner ideal is clean, and \textit{J. Herzog} and \textit{D. Popescu} [Manuscr. Math. 121, No. 3, 385--410 (2006; Zbl 1107.13017)] generalized this result by showing that the multicomplex associated to a monomial ideal \(I\) is shellable if and only if \(I\) is pretty clean. Let \(S = K[x_1, x_2,\dots, x_n]\) be the polynomial ring in \(n\) variables over a field \(K\). The main result of the paper under review shows for a monomial ideal \(I\subset S\) that the following conditions are equivalent: (a) \(I\) is pretty clean; (b) the polarization \(I^p\) of \(I\) is clean; (c) there exists a prime filtration \(F\) of \(I\) with \(\ell(F) = \text{adeg}(I)\); (d) the multicomplex associated to \(I\) is shellable; (e) the simplicial complex associated to \(I^p\) is shellable.