Almost Gorenstein homogeneous rings and their \(h\)-vectors (Q286548)

Almost Gorenstein local or graded rings were first introduced by \textit{V. Barucci} and \textit{R. Fröberg} [J. Algebra 188, No. 2, 418--442 (1997; Zbl 0874.13018)]. This new class of rings is Cohen-Macaulay but not Gorenstein, and has been of interest to several authors; see for instance [\textit{S. Goto} et al., J. Algebra 379, 355--381 (2013; Zbl 1279.13035); J. Pure Appl. Algebra 219, No. 7, 2666--2712 (2015; Zbl 1319.13017)] and [\textit{N. Matsuoka} and \textit{S. Murai}, ``Uniformly Cohen-Macaulay simplicial complexes and almost Gorenstein* simplicial complexes'', \url{arXiv:1405.7438}]. In the paper, the author studies higher dimensional homogeneous almost Gorenstein rings and gives a sufficient condition for a ring \(R\) to be almost Gorenstein in terms of its \(h\)-vector. For that, he shows Theorem 3.1: If \(h_i = h_{s-i}\) for \(i = 0, 1, \dots, \lfloor s/2\rfloor-1\), then \(R\) is almost Gorenstein. This ``almost symmetry condition'' in the almost Gorenstein case is analogous to the symmetry condition found by Stanley in the Gorenstein case, see Theorem 4.4 of [\textit{R. P. Stanley}, Adv. Math. 28, 57--83 (1978; Zbl 0384.13012)]. In addition, when the \(R\) is a domain and the socle degree is small, the author gives a sufficient and necessary condition for a ring to be almost Gorenstein in terms of its \(h\)-vector. He shows: Theorem 4.4: Assume that \(R\) is a domain. {\parindent=6mm \begin{itemize}\item[a)] When \(s = 2\), the following conditions are equivalent: {\parindent=12mm \begin{itemize}\item[i)] \(R\) is almost Gorenstein; \item[ii)] \(R\) is Gorenstein; \item[iii)] \(h_2 = 1\). \end{itemize}} \item[b)] When \(s = 3\), \(R\) is almost Gorenstein if and only if \(h_3 = 1\). \end{itemize}} Finally, the author gives examples of almost Gorenstein domains coming from lattice polytopes.