Representations of matroids and free resolutions for multigraded modules (Q854097)

The paper under review represents an important contribution to the study of multigraded modules. The author succeeds to explicitly construct a free resolution for any noetherian graded module over the polynomial ring \(R=K[X_1, \ldots, X_n]\), \(K\) a field, endowed with the standard \(\mathbb Z ^m\)-grading. Under suitable hypothesis, the construction introduced in this paper yields the Buchsbaum-Rim-Taylor complex considered by \textit{H. Charalambous} and \textit{A. Tchernev} [Math. Res. Letter 10, No. 4, 535--550 (2003; Zbl 1082.13009)]. In case of monomial ideals one recovers the Taylor resolution. The main tool is a canonical construction of a finite complex \(T_\bullet (\varphi)\) of finite dimensional \(K\)-vector spaces associated to a linear map \(\varphi: U_S \longrightarrow W\), where \(W\) is a finite dimensional vector space and \(U_S\) is a vector space with basis indexed by a finite set \(S\). The length of this complex and the ranks of the vector spaces in it depend only on the matroid on \(S\) that is represented by the map \(\varphi\). The technical core of the paper is Theorem 3.5, stating that \(T_\bullet (\varphi)\) is a resolution of \(\ker \varphi\), while an augmented complex is a resolution of coker \( \varphi\). In Section 4 one considers a multigraded noetherian \(R\)-module \(L\) given by a free (not necessarily minimal) multigraded presentation \(E @>{\Phi}>> G \rightarrow L\rightarrow 0\). View \(K\) as an \(R\)-module in the usual way and put \(\varphi =K \otimes _R \Phi\). By using the multidegrees of the elements in a multihomogeneous basis \(S\) of \(E\), one produces out of the complex of vector spaces \(T_\bullet (\varphi)\) a complex of multigraded free \(R\)-modules \(T_\bullet (\Phi, S)\). According to Theorem 4.5, \(T_\bullet (\Phi, S)\) is a free multigraded resolution of the \(R\)-module \(L\). The article is very well written, the author has taken care to make it accessible to commutative algebraists. The many definitions from matroid theory needed in the presentation are included in the first two sections. All results about matroids that are invoked are proved in an appendix.