No label defined (Q4736149)

Let \(R\) be a Noetherian ring and \(I\) an ideal in \(R\). The integral closure of \(I\) is the ideal \(\overline I\) of all elements of \(R\) that satisfy a normalized equation with coefficients in \(I\). If \(R\) is the polynomial ring \(k[x_1,\dots,x_n]\) over a field \(k\), and \(I=(f_1,\dots,f_m)\), \(f\in R\), then it is natural to look for algorithms providing the membership test (\(f\in\overline I\)), the completeness test (\(I=\overline I\)), the construction task (\(I\to\overline I\)) and so on. In the literature one does not find effective methods to deal generally with these problems. The difficulty arises, partly, from the specialized nature of the equations the elements need to satisfy. An exception, when we understand the problem fully, is the case of monomial ideals. In this case, \(\overline I\) is the monomial ideal defined by the integral convex hull of the exponent vectors of \(I\). The authors mainly treat the membership problem in the monomial case by exploiting the connection with multiplicities and its linkage to the computation of volumes of polyhedra. They discuss several existent software packages and introduce their own contribution, a probabilistic Monte Carlo based approach to the computation of volumes. In the last section, an exploration of the relations between the multiplicities of an ideal \(I\) of finite co-length and of its initial term ideal is given. Here a theorem of Macaulay is exploited. For the entire collection see [Zbl 1027.00012].