Square-free Gröbner degenerations (Q785935)

Let \(K\) denote a field and let \(S = K[x_1,\ldots,x_n]\) denote the polynomial ring equipped with the standard grading. For a finitely generated graded \(S\)-module \(M\) let \(h^{ij}(M)\) denote the \(K\)-dimension of the degree \(j\) component of the \(i\)-th local cohomology module \(H^i_{\mathfrak{m}}(M)\) supported in the maximal ideal \(\mathfrak{m} = (x_1,\ldots,x_n)\). Let \(I \subset S\) be a homogeneous ideal with \(J\) an initial ideal with respect to a term order. Jürgen Herzog conjectured that the extremal Betti numbers of \(S/I\) and \(S/J\) coincide provided \(J\) is square-free. In their main result the authors prove that \(h^{ij}(S/I) = h^{ij}(S/J)\) provided \(J\) is square-free. Among others this solves Herzog's Conjecture in the affirmative and has various interesting further consequences. Moreover, they discuss properties of ideals admitting square-free initial ideals and consequences of the main result about \(\operatorname{depth},\operatorname{reg}\) and the cohomological dimension of \(S/I\) and \(S/J\) resp. It is shown that ideals defining ASLs, Cartwright-Sturm ideals and Knutson ideals are families with square-free initial ideals. Finally further developments and questions are discussed. The main technical tool for the authors' proof is the notion of cohomological full singularity as introduced by \textit{A. De Stefani} [``Cohomologically full rings'', Preprint, \url{arXiv:1806.00536}].