Defining ideals of cohen-macaulay semigroup rings (Q4029256)

Let \(H \subseteq \mathbb{N}^ r\) be the additive semigroup of \(\mathbb{N}^ r\) generated by \(h_ 1, \dots, h_{r+m} \in \mathbb{N}^ r\) \((r > 0\), \(m \geq 0)\) and suppose that the generators satisfy the following two conditions: (1) \(h_ 1,\dots,h_ r\) are linearly independent over \(\mathbb{Q}\); (2) for every \(h \in H\), there exists \(n \in \mathbb{N}\), \(n \neq 0\), such that \(n \cdot h = \sum_{i=1}^ r \mathbb{N} \cdot h_ i\) then \(H\) is called a simplicial semigroup. If \(S : = k[x_ 1, \dots, x_{r+m}]\) \((k\) any field), let \(\varphi : S \to k[t_ 1, \dots, t_ r]\) be defined by: \(\varphi (x_ i) : = t^{h_ i}\); then the semigroup ring \(k[H]\) is the image of the map \(\varphi\) and \(I_ H\) denotes the kernel of \(\varphi\). The aim of the paper is to characterize the Cohen-Macaulay property of the \(k\)-algebra \(k[H]\) in terms of a Gröbner basis of \(I_ H\). In particular, it is given a theorem which shows that \(k[H]\) is Cohen- Macaulay if and only if a Gröbner basis of \(I_ H\) (for a suitable term-ordering) satisfies some properties which can easily be computed. Successively, it is considered the specific case of \(k[H]\) of codimension two. It is proved (generalized a theorem of Herzog), that in this case if \(k[H]\) is Cohen-Macaulay, then a minimal Gröbner basis of \(I_ H\) (and so a set of generators of it), is given by two or these elements (and conversely). It is then given a method to explicitly determine the generators of \(I_ H\) and it is proved that \(I_ H\) is a determinantal ideal. In the last section, the above results are applied to determine the Cohen-Macaulay property of 2-dimensional semigroup rings and, in particular, the coordinate rings of monomial curves in \(\mathbb{P}^ 3\).