Equidimensional symmetric algebras and residual intersections (Q5954263)

Let \(R\) be a universally catenary local ring, \(M\) a finitely generated \(R\)-module. Denote by \(\mu(M)\) the minimal number of generators of the module \(M\), and by \(S(M)\) the symmetric algebra of \(M\). The main result of the paper says that the ideals generated by the rows of a minimal presentation matrix of \(M\) have height at most \(\mu(M)-\text{rank} (M)\), provided \(S(M)\) is equidimensional. Moreover, when the height equals \(\mu(M)-\text{rank} (M)\), they are Cohen-Macaulay ideals if \(S(M)\) is Cohen-Macaulay. The last part of the paper concerns some applications to residual intersection ideals.