Tight closure test exponents for certain parameter ideals (Q874431)

This paper is concerned with the tight closure of an ideal \({\mathfrak a}\) in a commutative noetherian ring \(R\) of prime characteristic \(p\). The formal definition requires an infinite number of checks to determine whether or not an element of \(R\) belongs to the tight closure of \({\mathfrak a}\). The situation in this respect is much improved by Hochster's and Huneke's test elements for tight closure, which exist when \(R\) is a reduced algebra of finite type over an excellent local ring of characteristic \(p\). More recently, Hochster and Huneke have introduced the concept of test exponent for tight closure: existence of these test exponents would mean that one would have to perform just one single check to determine whether or not an element of \(R\) belongs to the tight closure of \({\mathfrak a}\). However, it is not at all clear whether to expect test exponents to exist. Roughly speaking, test exponents exist if and only if tight closure commutes with localization. The main purpose of this paper is to provide a short direct proof that, for a test element \(c\) for a reduced excellent equidimensional local ring \((R, {\mathfrak m})\), there exists \(e_0 \in {\mathbb N} _0\) such that \(p^{e_0}\) is a test exponent for \(c, {\mathfrak a}\) for every parameter ideal \({\mathfrak a}\) of \(R\), i.e., in this case, an ideal that can be generated by a subset of a system of parameters for \(R\).