The main result provides an algorithm for determining the minimal free resolution of ideals of fat point subschemes of ${\bf P}^2$ involving up to 8 general points with arbitrary multiplicities; the results hold over algebraically closed fields of any characteristic. The algorithm, which works by giving a formula in certain cases and a reduction to these cases otherwise, does not involve Gröbner bases, and so is very fast, even for very large multiplicities. Partial information is also obtained in certain cases with $n>8$.
The graded Betti numbers of the minimal free resolution (and also therefore the Hilbert function) of the ideal of a fat point subscheme Z of P^2 are determined whenever Z is supported at any 6 or fewer distinct points. All results hold over an algebraically closed field k of arbitrary characteristic.
Given an ideal $I$, the containment problem is concerned about finding the values $m$ and $n$ such that the $m$-th symbolic power of $I$ is contained in its $n$-th ordinary power. In this paper we consider this problem focusing on two classes of ideals of fat points. In particular we study the ideal of $n$ points on a line in $\mathbb{P}^N$ and the ideal of three nonlinear points in $\mathbb{P}^N$ for $N\geq2$.
This paper is a natural sequel to [22] in that it tackles problems of the same nature. Here one aims at the ideal theoretic and homological properties of a class of ideals of general plane fat points whose second symbolic powers hold virtual multiplicities of proper homaloidal types. For this purpose one carries a detailed examination of their linear systems at the initial degree, a good deal of the results depending on the method of applying the classical arithmetic quadratic transformations of Hudson--Nagata. A subsidiary guide to understand these ideals through their initial linear systems …
One considers plane Cremona maps with proper base points and the {\em base ideal} generated by the linear system of forms defining the map. The object of this work is the interweave between the algebraic properties of the base ideal and those of the ideal of these points fattened by the virtual multiplicities arising from the linear system. One reveals conditions which naturally regulate this association, with particular emphasis on the homological side. While most classical numerical inequalities concern the three highest virtual multiplicities, here one emphasizes also the role of one single…
We investigate the minimal graded free resolutions of ideals of at most n+1 fat points in general position in P^n. Our main theorem is that these ideals are componentwise linear. This result yields a number of corollaries, including the multiplicity conjecture of Herzog, Huneke, and Srinivasan in this case. On the computational side, using an iterated mapping cone process, we compute formulas for the graded Betti numbers of ideals associated to two fat points in P^n, verifying a conjecture of Fatabbi, and at most n+1 general double points in P^n.
Conjectures for the Hilbert function of the m-th symbolic power of the ideal of n general points of P2 are verified for infinitely many m for each square n > 9, using an approach developed by the authors in a previous paper. In those cases that n is even, conjectures for the resolution are also verified. Previously, by work of Evain (for the Hilbert function) and of Harbourne, Holay and Fitchett (for the resolution), these conjectures were known for infinitely many m for a given n > 9 only for n being a power of 4.
Our results concern minimal graded free resolutions of fat point ideals for points in a hyperplane. Suppose, for example, that I(m,d) is the ideal defining r given points of multiplicity m in the projective space P^d. Assume that the given points lie in a hyperplane P^{d-1} in P^d, and that the ground field k is algebraically closed of characteristic 0. We give an explicit minimal graded free resolution of I(m,d) in k[P^d] in terms of the minimal graded free resolutions of the ideals I(j,d-1) in k[P^{d-1}] with j < m+1. As a corollary, we give the following formula for the Poincare polynomial …
We consider the open problem of determining the graded Betti numbers for fat point subschemes supported at general points of the projective plane. We relate this problem to the open geometric problem of determining the splitting type of the pullback of the cotangent bundle on the plane to the normalization of certain rational plane curves. We give a conjecture for the graded Betti numbers which would determine them in all degrees but one for every fat point subscheme supported at general points of the plane. We also prove our Betti number conjecture in a broad range of cases. An appendix discu…
Let I be the ideal corresponding to a set of general points $p_1,...,p_n \in P^2$. There recently has been progress in showing that a naive lower bound for the Hilbert functions of symbolic powers $I^{(m)}$ is in fact attained when n>9. Here, for m sufficiently large, the minimal free graded resolution of $I^{(m)}$ is determined when n>9 is an even square, assuming only that this lower bound on the Hilbert function is attained. Under ostensibly stronger conditions (that are nonetheless expected always to hold), a similar result is shown to hold for odd squares, and for infinitely many m for ea…
We study the connection between the generation of a fat point scheme supported at general points in the plane and the behaviour of the cotangent bundle with respect to some rational curves particularly relevant for the scheme. We put forward two conjectures, giving examples and partial results in support of them.
We study the symbolic and regular powers of ideals I for a family of special configurations of lines in P^3. For this family, we show that I^(m) = I^m for all integers m if and only if I^(3) = I^3. We use these configurations to answer a question of Huneke that asks whether I^(m) = I^m for all m if equality holds when m equals the big height of the ideal I.
A current research theme is to compare symbolic powers of an ideal $I$ with the regular powers of $I$. In this paper, we focus on the case that $I=I_X$ is an ideal defining an almost complete intersection (ACI) sets of points $X$ in $\mathbb{P}^1\times\mathbb{P}^1$. In particular, we describe a minimal free bigraded resolution of a non arithmetically Cohen-Macaulay (also non homogeneus) set of fat points $\mathcal Z$ whose support is an ACI. We call $\mathcal Z$ a fat ACI. We also show that its symbolic and ordinary powers are equal, i.e, $I_{\mathcal Z}^{(m)}=I_{\mathcal Z}^{m}$ for any $m\ge…
By defining a fat point subscheme of $P^2$ to be a 0-dimensional subscheme defined by a sheaf of integrally closed ideals one extends the notion of fat point subschemes to allow infinitely near points. With this notion of fat points, this preprint determines the number of generators in each degree in a minimal homogeneous set of generators for the homogeneous ideal defining any fat point subscheme supported at points of any plane conic, smooth or not. Special cases for points on a cubic are also studied. All work is over an algebraically closed field of arbitrary characteristic.
B. Harbourne and C. Huneke conjectured that for any ideal $I$ of fat points in $P^N$ its $r$-th symbolic power $I^{(r)}$ should be contained in $M^{(N-1)r}I^r$, where $M$ denotes the homogeneous maximal ideal in the ring of coordinates of $P^N$. We show that this conjecture holds for the ideal of any number of simple (not fat) points in general position in $P^3$ and for at most $N+1$ simple points in general position in $P^N$. As a corollary we give a positive answer to Chudnovsky Conjecture in the case of generic points in $P^3$.
This paper is concerned with determining the number of generators in each degree for minimal sets of homogeneous generators for saturated ideals defining fat point subschemes $Z=m_1p_1+ ... +m_rp_r$ for general sets of points $p_i$ of $P^2$. For thin points (i.e., m_i=1 for all i), a solution is known, in terms of a maximal rank property. Although this property in general fails for fat points, we show it holds in an appropriate asymptotic sense. In the uniform (i.e., $m_1= ... =m_r$) case, we determine all failures of this maximal rank property for $r\le 9$, and we develop evidence for the con…
This paper surveys certain problems involving numerical characters for ideals I(Z) defining fat points subschemes $Z=m_1p_1+...+m_np_n$ for general points $p_i\in {\bf P}^2$. It also presents some new results, and includes a suite of MACAULAY 2 scripts for computing actual or conjectured values of (or bounds on) these characters. One such script, for example, is findres, which implements an algorithm due to Fitchett, Harbourne and Holay for computing the syzygy modules in a minimal free resolution of the ideal I(Z) for any such Z with n<=8; since findres does not rely on a Gröbner basis calcul…
Let Z be a fat point scheme in P^2 supported on general points. Here we prove that if the multiplicities are at most 3 and the length of Z is sufficiently high then the number of generators of the homogeneous ideal I_Z in each degree is as small as numerically possible. Since it is known that Z has maximal Hilbert function, this implies that Z has the expected minimal free resolution.
Let $F$ be a line bundle on the blow-up $X$ of $P^2$ at $r$ general points $p_1, ..., p_r$ and let $L$ be the pullback to $X$ of the line bundle coming from a line on $P^2$. Under reasonable hypotheses that are conjectured always to hold if the points $p_1, ..., p_r$ are sufficiently general, it is shown that the computation of the dimension of the cokernel of the natural map $μ_F:Γ(F)\otimesΓ(L)\toΓ(F\otimes L)$ reduces to the case that $F$ is ample. As an application, a complete determination of the dimension of the cokernel of $μ_F$ is obtained when $r\le 7$, thereby solving the Ideal Gener…
The purpose of this note is twofold. We present first a vanishing theorem for families of linear series with base ideal being a fat points ideal. We apply then this result in order to give a partial proof of a conjecture raised by Bocci, Harbourne and Huneke concerning containment relations between ordinary and symbolic powers of planar point ideals.
For a scheme of fat points $Z$ defined by the saturated ideal $\mathcal{I}_Z$, the regularity index computes the Castelnuovo-Mumford regularity of the Cohen-Macaulay ring $R/\mathcal{I}_Z.$ For points in " general position" we improve the bound for the regularity index computed by Segre for $\mathbb {P}^2$ and generalised by Catalisano, Trung and Valla for $\mathbb {P}^n$. Moreover, we prove that the generalised Segre's bound conjectured by Fatabbi and Lorenzini holds for $n+3$ arbitrary points in $\mathbb {P}^n$. We propose a modification of Segre's conjecture for arbitrary points and we disc…
We study the bi-graded Hilbert function of ideals of general fat points with same multiplicity in $\mathbb{P}^1\times\mathbb{P}^1$. Our first tool is the multiprojective-affine-projective method introduced by the second author in previous works with A.V. Geramita and A. Gimigliano where they solved the case of double points. In this way, we compute the Hilbert function when the smallest entry of the bi-degree is at most the multiplicity of the points. Our second tool is the differential Horace method introduced by J. Alexander and A. Hirschowitz to study the Hilbert function of sets of fat poi…
We consider the Lie algebra of derivations of a zero dimensional local complex algebra. We describe an inequality involving the embedding dimension, the order, and the first deviation that forces this Lie algebra to be solvable. Our result was motivated by and generalizes the solvability of the Yau algebra of an isolated hypersurface singularity.
There has been increased recent interest in understanding the relationship between the symbolic powers of an ideal and the geometric properties of the corresponding variety. While a number of results are available for the two-dimensional case, the higher-dimensional case is largely unexplored. In the present paper we study a natural conjecture arising from a result by Bocci and Chiantini. As a first step towards understanding the higher-dimensional picture, we show that this conjecture is true in dimension three. Also, we provide examples showing that the hypotheses of the conjecture may not b…
We study Hilbert functions of certain non-reduced schemes A supported at finite sets of points in projective space, in particular, fat point schemes. We give combinatorially defined upper and lower bounds for the Hilbert function of A using nothing more than the multiplicities of the points and information about which subsets of the points are linearly dependent. When N=2, we give these bounds explicitly and we give a sufficient criterion for the upper and lower bounds to be equal. When this criterion is satisfied, we give both a simple formula for the Hilbert function and combinatorially defi…
Given an ideal in a polynomial ring, we show that the asymptotic resurgence studied by Guardo, Harbourne, and Van Tuyl can be computed using integral closures. As a consequence, the asymptotic resurgence of an ideal is the maximum of finitely many ratios involving Waldschmidt-like constants (which we call skew Waldschmidt constants) defined in terms of Rees valuations. We use this to prove that the asymptotic resurgence coincides with the resurgence if the ideal is normal (that is, all its powers are integrally closed). For a monomial ideal the skew Waldschmidt constants have an interpretation…
Searching for structural reasons behind old results and conjectures of Chudnovksy regarding the least degree of a nonzero form in an ideal of fat points in projective N-space, we make conjectures which explain them, and we prove the conjectures in certain cases, including the case of general points in the projective plane. Our conjectures were also partly motivated by the Eisenbud-Mazur Conjecture on evolutions, which concerns symbolic squares of prime ideals in local rings, but in contrast we consider higher symbolic powers of homogeneous ideals in polynomial rings.
Guided by evidence coming from a few key examples and attempting to unify previous work of Chudnovsky, Esnault-Viehweg, Eisenbud-Mazur, Ein-Lazarsfeld-Smith, Hochster-Huneke and Bocci-Harbourne, Harbourne and Huneke recently formulated a series of conjectures that relate symbolic and regular powers of ideals of fat points in ${\bf P}^N$. In this paper we propose another conjecture along the same lines (Conjecture 3.9), and we verify it and the conjectures of Harbourne and Huneke for a variety of configurations of points.
Our main result describes the relation between the syzygies involving the first order partial derivatives $f_0,...,f_n$ of a homogeneous polynomial $f\in \C[x_0,...x_n]$ and the defect of the linear systems vanishing on the singular locus subscheme $Σ_f=V(f_0,...,f_n)$ of the hypersurface $D:f=0$ in the complex projective space $\PP^n$, when $D$ has only isolated singularities.
Let I = p_1^{m_1} \cap ... \cap p_s^{m_s} be the defining ideal of a scheme of fat points in P^{n_1} x ... x P^{n_k} with support in generic position. When all the m_i's are 1, we explicitly calculate the Castelnuovo-Mumford regularity of I. In general, if at least one m_i >= 2, we give an upper bound for the regularity of I, which extends the result of Catalisano, Trung and Valla to the multi-projective case.
In order to determine the Hilbert function of the ideal of a fat point subscheme of projective space, we show that it is enough to determine, both for the subscheme itself and the subschemes obtained from it by successively adjoining to it additional general points, the least degrees in which the ideals of the subschemes are nonzero. This point of view gives rise to the following conjecture: if C is any reduced irreducible curve on a surface X obtained by blowing up P^2 at any finite number of generic points, then C^2 > g-2, where g is the arithmetic genus of C. This conjecture is shown to be …
