On the polymatroidal property of monomial ideals with a view towards orderings of minimal generators (Q2415890)

Let $\mathbb{K}$ be a field and $S=\mathbb{K}[x_1,\dots,x_n]$ be the polynomial ring in $n$ variables over the field $\mathbb{K}$. Assume that $I$ is a monomial ideal of $S$ which is generated in a single degree and suppose $G(I)$ is the set of minimal monomial generators of $I$. The ideal $I$ is called polymatroidal if the following exchange condition is satisfied: For monomials $u=x^{a_1}_1 \ldots x^{a_n}_ n$ and $v = x^{b_1}_1\ldots x^{b_n}_ n$ belonging to $G(I)$ and for every $i$ with $a_i > b_i$, one has $j$ with $a_j < b_j$ such that $x_j(u/x_i)\in G(I)$. Let $I$ be a monomial ideal and assume that $u_1\prec u_2 \prec \ldots \prec u_t$ is a linear order on $G(I)$. One says that $I$ has linear quotients with respect to $\prec$, if for every $2\leq i\leq t$, the ideal $(u_1, \ldots, u_{i-1}):u_i$ is generated by a subset of variables. It is known that every polymatroidal ideal has linear quotients with respect to the reverse lexicographic order induced by any ordering of variables. In the paper under review, the authors prove that a monomial ideal $I$ generated in a single degree, is polymatroidal if and only if it has linear quotients with respect to the lexicographical order induced by any ordering of variables. They also conjecture that the same statement is true if one replaces the lexicographical order with the reverse lexicographical order. The conjecture is proven in several cases.