Symmetry in the core of a zero-dimensional monomial ideal (Q5965121)

Let \(I\) be an ideal of a commutative ring \(R\) with identity. An ideal \(J\subseteq I\) is called a reduction of \(I\), when \(I^{r+1}=JI^{r}\) for some non-negative integer \(r\), and the intersection of all reductions of \(I\) is called \(\mathrm{core}(I)\). Also the reduction number \(r(I)\) denotes the smallest integer \(r\) such that there exists a minimal reduction \(J\) of \(I\) satisfying the above equation. The main purpose of this article is to study the core of a zero-dimensional monomial ideal \(I\) in a polynomial ring over an infinite field \(K\) with char\(K=0\) or sufficiently large, especially with two indeterminates, that is \(R=K[x,y]\). The author defines an ideal \(\mathfrak{b}= LTS(\mathfrak{a}, I)\), where \(\mathfrak{a}\) is an ideal satisfying certain conditions which force \(\mathfrak{a}\) ``not to be too far from \(I\)''. Intuitively speaking, if \(\Gamma(\mathfrak{b})\) denotes the set of exponents of monomials in \(\mathfrak{b}\), then locally the shape of the borderline of \(\Gamma(\mathfrak{b})\) is created by 2 adjacent copies of the borderline of \(\Gamma(\mathfrak{a})\). So it is said that \(\mathfrak{b}\) has Local Translational Symmetry with respect to \(I\). Among some other results, it is proved that \(r(I)\leq 1\) if and only if \(I^2=LTS(I,I)\). Using this, an algorithm is presented to compute the smallest monomial ideal \(I^*\) containing \(I\), such that \(r(I^*)\leq 1\). Also it is proved that, setting \(\mathrm{coef}(I)=\mathrm{core}(I):I\), then \(\mathrm{core}(I)=\mathrm{core}(I^*)=I\mathrm{coef}(I)\) if and only if \(\mathrm{core}(I)=LTS(\mathrm{coef}(I),I)\). In particular, it is shown that if \(I\) is an almost complete intersection, then it satisfies these equivalent conditions. For any ideal satisfying these equivalent conditions, we can utilize the above mentioned algorithm to find \(I^*\) and then apply Theorem 3.3 of ``Coefficient ideals in dimension 2'' [\textit{A. Kohlhaas}, Ill. J. Math. 58(4), 1041--1053 (2014; Zbl 1327.13020)], to compute \(\mathrm{core}(I)=\mathrm{core}(I^*)\).