Depth, Stanley depth, and regularity of ideals associated to graphs (Q730008)

Let \(S= K[x_1,\ldots, x_n]\) be the polynomial ring in \(n\) variables over a field \(K\) and \(M\) be a finitely generated \(\mathbb{Z}^n\)-graded \(S\)-module. A decomposition of \(M\) as direct sum of \(K\)-vector spaces of the form \(\mathcal D: M= \bigoplus_{i=1}^ru_iK[Z_i]\), where \(u_i\in M\) is a homogeneous element and \(Z_i\subseteq \{x_1,\ldots, x_n\}\), is called a Stanley decomposition of \(M\). The number \(\mathrm{sdepth} \mathcal D:= \min\{|Z_i|: i=1,\ldots, r\}\) is called the Stanley depth of \(\mathcal D\). The Stanley depth of \(M\) is defined to be \[ \mathrm{sdepth} M:=\max \{\mathrm{sdepth} \mathcal D\mid \mathcal D \;\text{is a Stanley decomposition of} \;M\}. \] \textit{R. P. Stanley} [Invent. Math. 68, 175--193 (1982; Zbl 0516.10009)] conjectured that \(\mathrm{depth} M\leq \mathrm{sdepth} M\). The main goal of this paper is to study the Stanley depth of cover ideals and their powers. Let \(G\) be a graph on the vertex set \(V(G)\). A matching in \(G\) is a set of edges such that no two different edges share a common vertex. An independent set of \(G\) is a set \(C\subset V(G)\) such that \(\{i,j\}\notin E(G)\) for all \(i,j\in C\). Let \(M = \{\{a_i, b_i\} \mid 1\leq i\leq r\}\) be a nonempty matching of \(G\). We say that \(M\) is an ordered matching of \(G\) if the following hold: { {(1)} \(A := \{a_1,\ldots, a_r\}\subseteq V (G)\) is a set of independent vertices of \(G\); and {(2)} \(\{a_i, b_j\}\in E(G)\) implies that \(i\leq j\). } The ordered matching number of \(G\), denoted by \(\nu_0(G)\), is defined to be \[ \nu_0(G)=\max\{|M|: M \subseteq E(G)\;\text{is an ordered matching of}\;G\}. \] The ideal \(J(G)= \bigcap_{\{x_i,x_j\}\in E(G)} (x_i, x_j)\) is called the cover ideal of \(G\) in \(S\). The author proves that for every graph \(G\), the inequalities \(\mathrm{sdepth}(J(G))\geq n-\nu_0(G)\) and \(\mathrm{sdepth}(S/J(G))\geq n-\nu_0(G)-1\) hold. The author also shows that \(J(G)^k\) and \(S/J(G)^k\) satisfy the Stanley's inequality, for every integer \(k\gg 0\), when \(G\) is a bipartite graph.