A stable version of Harbourne's conjecture and the containment problem for space monomial curves

Abstract: The symbolic powers

I^{(n)}

of a radical ideal

I

in a polynomial ring consist of the functions that vanish up to order

n

in the variety defined by

I

. These do not necessarily coincide with the ordinary algebraic powers

I^{n}

, but it is natural to compare the two notions. The containment problem consists of determining the values of

n

and

m

for which

I^{(n)} s u b s e t e q I^{m}

holds. When

I

is an ideal of height

2

in a regular ring,

I^{(3)} s u b s e t e q I^{2}

may fail, but we show that this containment does hold for the defining ideal of the space monomial curve

(t^{a}, t^{b}, t^{c})

. More generally, given a radical ideal

I

of big height

h

, while the containment

I^{(h n - h + 1)} s u b s e t e q I^{n}

conjectured by Harbourne does not necessarily hold for all

n

, we give sufficient conditions to guarantee such containments for

n g g 0

.

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