On the vanishing and the finiteness of supports of generalized local cohomology modules (Q926275)

Let \((R, \mathfrak m)\) denote a local noetherian ring with \(I \subset R\) an ideal. For two \(R\)-modules \(M,N\) let \(H^j_I(M,N) = \varinjlim \text{Ext}_R^j(M/I^nM,N), j \in \mathbb Z,\) denote the \(j\)-th generalized local cohomology modules of \(I\) with respect to \(M,N\) as introduced by \textit{J. Herzog} [Komplexe, Auflösungen und Dualität in der lokalen Algebra, Habilitation, Universität Regensburg (1970)]. Note that in the case of \(M = R\) this is just the ordinary \(j\)-th local cohomology module of \(I\) with respect to \(N.\) It is an important question in the theory of local cohomology whether the sets \(\text{Ass} H^j(N)\) and \(\text{Supp} H^j_I(N)\) are finite. Note that in general \(\text{Ass} H^j(N)\) is not a finite set as follows by virtue of \textit{M. Katzman}'s example [J. Algebra 252, No. 1, 161--166 (2002; Zbl 1083.13505)]. The purpose of the paper is to investigate finiteness properties of the generalized local cohomology. In particular: There is a vanishing result of \(H^j_I(M,N)\) for \(j > \dim R\) provided the projective dimension of \(M\) is finite (a condition for the vanishing of the generalized local cohomology in large dimensions). Moreover, the authors study and give characterizations for the least and the last integer \(r\) such that \(\text{Supp} H^r_I(M,N)\) is infinite.