Canonical Hilbert-Burch matrices for ideals of \(k[x,y]\) (Q841525)

Given a monomial ideal \(E\) in a polynomial ring the set \(V(E)\) consisting of all ideals \(I\) whose initial ideal (in a given term order) is \(E\) carries naturally the structure of an affine variety. This viewpoint is closely related to the Hilbert scheme and therefore of fundamental importance in algebraic geometry. In general the structure of the set \(V(E)\) can be quite complicated, corresponding to the related fact for Hilbert schemes (for example one may come across non-reduced structure). In this paper the authors consider the case where the polynomial ring has 2 variables and the term order is the lexicographic ordering of monomials. In this case they show, in an explicit manner, that \(V(E)\) is an affine set. The paper is detailed and contains several explicit examples, not just relevant to the precise problem above but also to demonstrate the complexity of \(V(E)\) in more general settings. The authors do a good job of explaining the issues which arise when working such calculations, as well as giving full and detailed computations in their proofs.