A note on monomial ideals (Q866820)

For \(I\) an ideal of \(R=K[X_1, X_2,\ldots, X_n]\) (\(K\) a field), let ara\((I)\) be the minimal number of elements of \(R\) that generate an ideal with the same radical as \(I\). The main result of the paper is that for a square-free monomial ideal \(I\) one has ara\((I)\leq \mu (I) -\nu (I)+1\). Here \(\mu (I)\) denotes the minimal number of generators for \(I\), and \(\nu (I)\) is defined in terms of the minimum height of the minimal primes over \(I\). The proof is constructive, based on a result of \textit{Th. Schmitt} and \textit{W. Vogel} [Math. Ann. 245, 247--253 (1979; Zbl 0399.14032)], and leads to an algorithm for obtaining the bound for ara\((I)\).