Demailly's conjecture and the containment problem (Q2664591)

In the paper under review, the authors investigate Demailly's Conjecture and the (stable) Harbourne-Huneke Conjecture for a general set of sufficiently many points. Let \(\mathbb{K}\) be a field and \(N \in \mathbb{N}\) be an integer. Denote by \(R = \mathbb{K}[\mathbb{P}^{N}_{\mathbb{K}}]\) the homogeneous coordinate ring of \(\mathbb{P}^{N}_{\mathbb{K}}\), and by \(\mathfrak{m}\) its maximal homogeneous ideal. For a homogeneous ideal \(I \subset R\) we denote by \(\alpha(I)\) the least degree of a homogeneous polynomial in \(I\), and we define by \[I^{(n)} = \bigcap_{\mathfrak{p} \in \mathrm{Ass}(R/I)} I^{n}R_{\mathfrak{p}}\cap R\] the \(n\)-th symbolic power of \(I\). We have the following two important conjectures regarding the initial degrees of symbolic powers of homogeneous ideals. Conjecture (Chudnovsky). Suppose that \(\mathbb{K}\) is an algebraically closed field of characteristic \(0\). Let \(I\) be the defining ideal of a set of points \(\mathbb{X} \subset \mathbb{P}^{N}_{\mathbb{K}}\), then for all \(n\geq 1\) one has \[\frac{\alpha(I^{(n)})}{n} \geq \frac{\alpha(I) + N-1}{N}.\] This conjecture has been investigated extensively by many authors. In particular, this conjecture has been proved for a very general set of points. Chudnovsky's conjecture has been generalized by Demailly to the following statement. Conjecture (Demailly). Suppose that \(\mathbb{K}\) is an algebraically closed field of characteristic \(0\). Let \(I\) be the defining ideal of a set of points \(\mathbb{X} \subset \mathbb{P}^{N}_{\mathbb{K}}\) and let \(m \in \mathbb{N}\) be any integer. Then for all \(n\geq 1\) \[\frac{\alpha(I^{(n)})}{n} \geq \frac{\alpha(I^{(m)}) + N-1}{m+N-1}.\] Demailly's conjecture, for \(N=2\), was proved by Esnault and Viehweg, and probably this is the only one general result devoted to Demailly's conjecture in its whole generality. In the present paper, the authors establish Demailly's conjecture for a general set of sufficiently many points. Theorem A. Suppose that \(\mathbb{K}\) is algebraically closed (of arbitrary characteristic) and \(N\geq 3\). For a fixed integer \(m\geq 1\), let \(I\) be the defining ideal of a general set of \(s \geq (2m+3)^{N}\) points in \(\mathbb{P}^{N}_{\mathbb{K}}\). Then for all \(n\geq 1\) we have \[\frac{\alpha(I^{(n)})}{n} \geq \frac{\alpha(I^{(m)}) + N-1}{m+N-1}.\] The second part of the paper is devoted to the (stable) Harbourne-Huneke Containment Conjecture. Theorem B. Let \(\mathbb{K}\) be a field. 1) Let \(I\) be the defining ideal if a codimension \(h\) star configuration in \(\mathbb{P}^{N}_{\mathbb{K}}\), for \(h \leq N\). For any \(m,r,c \geq 1\), we have \[I^{(r(m+h-1)-h+c)} \subset \mathfrak{m}^{(r-1)(h-1)+c-1}(I^{(m)})^{r}.\] 2) Let \(I = I_{t}(X)\) be the ideal of \(t\)-minors of a matrix \(X\) of indeterminates, and let \(h\) denote its height in \(\mathbb{K}[X]\). For all \(m,r,c\geq 1\), we have \[I^{(r(m+h-1)-h+c)} \subset \mathfrak{m}^{(r-1)(h-1)+c-1}(I^{(m)})^{r}.\] In particular, if \(I\) is the defining ideal of a star configuration, or a generic determinantal ideal, then \(I\) satisfies a Demailly-like bound, i.e., for all \(n \geq 1\) we have \[\frac{\alpha(I^{(n)})}{n} \geq \frac{\alpha(I^{(m)}) + h - 1}{m+h-1}.\]