Multigraded rings, diagonal subalgebras, and rational singularities (Q2654064)

One of the reasons why diagonal subalgebras of \(\mathbb{N}^2\)-graded rings are interesting is that they include the homogeneous coordinate rings of blow-ups of projective varieties. The authors of the paper under review restrict their attention to diagonal subalgebras of bigraded hypersurfaces (over a field \(K\)). More precisely, let \[ \mathcal{R} = K[x_1,\ldots ,x_n,y_1,\ldots ,y_m]/(f), \] where \(\deg x_i=(1,0)\), \(\deg y_i=(0,1)\) and \(\deg f=(d,e)\) with \(d>0\) and \(e>0\). They study the ring-theoretic properties of the diagonal subalgebras of \(\mathcal R\) associated to some diagonal \(\Delta = (g,h)\mathbb{N}\), namely \[ \mathcal R_{\Delta}=\bigoplus_{k\geq 0}\mathcal R_{(gk,hk)}. \] The authors characterize in a complete way for which diagonals the ring \(\mathcal R_{\Delta}\) is Cohen-Macaulay or the ring \(\mathcal R_{\Delta}\) is Gorenstein. Furthermore, if \(\text{char}(K)=0\), then they describe the diagonals for which the ring \(\mathcal R_{\Delta}\) has rational singularities or the ring \(\mathcal R_{\Delta}\) is of \(F\)-regular type. All the above characterizations are in terms of explicit formulas involving the numbers \(m,n,d,e,g,h\). In particular, the above ring-theoretic properties depend only on the degree of \(f\). As a consequence of the theorem one has many examples of diagonal subalgebras (of bigraded hypersurfaces) with rational singularities but which are not of \(F\)-regular type. The authors also prove a theorem that allows them to construct standard graded rings \(R\) with an isolated singularity and a non-rigid local cohomology, that is \[ H_{R_+}^2(R)_0=0 \;\;\;\text{ and } \;\;\;H_{R_+}^2(R)_1\neq 0. \] By using a result of Danilov there follow examples of rings with finitely generated, though not discrete, divisor class group. To show the results of the paper the authors need some auxiliary facts, which could be useful also for other purposes: For instance they extend the formula for the local cohomology of the Segre products given in \textit{S. Goto, K. Watanabe} [J. Math. Soc. Japan 30, 179-213 (1978; Zbl 0371.13017)]. Furthermore they prove a multigraded version of a criterion for having rational singularities given in \textit{H. Flenner} [Arch. Math. 36, 35-44 (1981; Zbl 0454.14001)] and in \textit{K. Watanabe} [Lect. Notes Pure Appl. Math. 88, 339-351 (1983)].