Powers of ideals in Cohen-Macaulay rings (Q678785)

Let \(A\) be a Cohen--Macaulay local ring \(A\) and let \(I\subset A\) be an unmixed ideal. This paper is concerned with a criterion for the associated graded ring \(G=\text{gr}_I(A)\) to be normally torsionfree. The main result (theorem (1.1)) improves previous theorems by many authors, specially Huckaba--Huneke. Huneke was the first to observe that the equality of the powers \(I^{(n)}=I^n\) for all \(n\geq 0\) could be expressed in terms of the local analytic spread of \(I\) being not larger than the dimension of the ambient [\textit{C. Hunecke}, Ill. J. Math. 26, 121-137 (1982; Zbl 0479.13008)]. Under a convenient (upper) bound requirement on the local number of generators of \(I\) in codimension essentially up to the (global) analytic spread \(\lambda(I)\) and a convenient (lower) bound requirement on the local depths of powers \(A/I^n\) within the range of the analytic deviation \(\text{ad}(I)\), the present author shows that the normal torsionfreeness of \(G\) is equivalent to having \(\lambda(I_Q)<\dim A_Q\) for every \(Q\in V(I)\setminus \text{Min}(A/I)\). Moreover, under these conditions he also shows that the reduction exponent of any \textit{special} reduction (too technical to be defined here) is at most \(\text{ad}(I)\), and the (global) depth of \(A/I\) is at least the minimum of \(\dim A-\lambda(I)\) and \(\alpha-\text{ad}(I)\) (\(\alpha\) is a number involved in the hypothetical local bounds of \(A/I\)). The author improves on the latter bounds if \(A\) is Gorenstein and \(A/I\) is Cohen--Macaulay. By and large the methods of the proofs are fairly (perhaps unavoidably) technical. The author elaborates on the properties of special reductions (as introduced by Huckaba-Huneke) and makes a thorough discussion of depths along certain exact sequences involving mixed powers of \(I\) and of a special reduction \(J\) of \(I\).