Boundary and shape of Cohen-Macaulay cone (Q261396)

Let \(R\) be a Noetherian local ring and \(\overline{G_0(R)}\) be the Grothendieck group of \(R\) modulo a numerical equivalence. The Cohen-Macaulay cone of \(R\) is defined by \[ C_{CM}(R):=\sum_{M:MCM} \mathbb{R}_{\geq 0}[M]\subset \overline{G_0(R)}_{\mathbb{R}}. \] Here MCM stands for being maximal Cohen-Macaulay. The first main result of the paper under review asserts that if \(R\) is a Cohen-Macaulay domain admitting de Jong's alterations then the closure of \(C_{CM}(R)\) intersects with the hyperplane of torsion modules only at the origin. Next, the paper presents some consequences of the first main result. First, it is proved that the set of isomorphism classes of maximal Cohen-Macauly modules of rank \(r\) up to numerical equivalence is finite. Secondly, it is shown that the map \(A_{d-1}(R)\rightarrow \overline{A_{d-1}(R)}\) is an isomorphism for most hypersurface singularities of dimension 3. Finally, the authors describe explicitly the Cohen-Macaulay cone for a class of local hypersurfaces defined by a power series of the form \(\xi\eta-f(x_1,\dots,x_n).\)