On the grades of order ideals (Q2581071)

Given a commutative noetherian local ring \((R,{\mathfrak m})\) and a finitely generated \(R\)-module \(M\) with \(\text{pd}_R(M)<\infty\), the author considers the order ideal \(O_M(u)=\{f(u)|f\in\text{Hom}_R (M,R)\}\) of a minimal generator \(u\in M\). He shows that the grade of \(O_M(u)\) is at least \(k\) if \(M\) is a \(k\)-th syzygy module and \(\text{pd}_R(M)\leq 1\). Moreover, the same conclusion holds if \(I\) is a perfect Gorenstein ideal of grade \(k+2\) and \(M\) is the \(k\)-th syzygy module of \(R/I\). As applications, the author proves that every minimal generator of an ideal \(I\subset R\) is a regular element of \(R\) if \(R\) is local and \(\text{pd}_R(I)<\infty\) or if \(R\) is a local CM-ring and \(I\subset R\) an almost complete intersection of grade 3.