Stability of depths of powers of edge ideals (Q5964496)

Let \(I\) be a homogeneous ideal in a polynomial ring \(R = k[x_1, \ldots,x_r]\) over a field \(k\). It is a well-known result of \textit{M. Brodmann} [Math. Proc. Camb. Philos. Soc. 86, 35--39 (1979; Zbl 0413.13011)] that the depth of powers of \(I\), \(\text{depth} R/I^n\) is eventually constant. The index of depth stability of \(I\), denoted \(\text{dstab} I\), is the smallest integer \(n_0\) such that \(\text{depth} R/I^n = \text{depth} R/I^{n_0}\) for all \(n \geq n_0\). For a general ideal, both the stability and the index of stability of an ideal is not known. (There is no good bound for the latter in general). In the current paper, the author investigates the case of an edge ideal of a graph, i.e., a square-free monomial ideal generated by forms of degree two. In this case, the author has established a number of interesting results. In particular, he shows that the depth of powers stabilizes to the number of connected bipartite components of the graph. Furthermore, the first power whose depth achieves this stabilization is also the index of depth stability. He further gives an explicit bound on this index in term of combinatorial data of the underlying graph \(G\). Consequently, this index is smaller than the dimension of the ring. For the proofs of the results in the paper, he has skillfully used the Takayama's formula [\textit{Y. Takayama}, Bull. Math. Soc. Sci. Math. Roum., Nouv. Sér. 48(96), No. 3, 327--344 (2005; Zbl 1092.13020)] for computing local cohomology modules of arbitrary monomial ideals.