Reciprocal domains and Cohen-Macaulay $d$-complexes in $R^d$

We give an elementary introduction to some recent polyhedral techniques for understanding and solving systems of multivariate polynomial equations. We provide numerous concrete examples and illustrations, and assume no background in algebraic geometry or convex geometry. Highlights include the following: (1) A completely self-contained proof of an extension of Bernstein's Theorem. Our extension relates volumes of polytopes with the number of connected components of the comp...

Let $P\subset\R^d$ be a $d$-dimensional polytope. The {\em realization space} of~$P$ is the space of all polytopes $P'\subset\R^d$ that are combinatorially equivalent to~$P$, modulo affine transformations. We report on work by the first author, which shows that realization spaces of \mbox{4-dimensional} polytopes can be ``arbitrarily bad'': namely, for every primary semialgebraic set~$V$ defined over~$\Z$, there is a $4$-polytope $P(V)$ whose realization space is ``stably equ...

Addressing a question of M. Stillman, it had been shown by Ein, Eisenbud, and the author that in a projective space of dimension at most 5, every arithmetically Cohen-Macaulay curve which is cut out by quadrics scheme- theoretically also has its homogeneous ideal generated by quadrics. In this note it is shown that this is not the case in higher dimensional spaces.

In this paper, we introduce a new algebraic concept, which we call squarefree P-modules. This concept is inspired from Karu's proof of the non-negativity of the cd-indices of Gorenstein* posets, and supplies a way to study cd-indices from the viewpoint of commutative algebra. Indeed, by using the theory of squarefree P-modules, we give several new algebraic and combinatorial results on CW-posets. First, we define an analogue of the cd-index for any CW-poset and prove its non-...

This paper studies properties of simplicial complexes for which the m-th symbolic power of the Stanley-Reisner ideal equals to the m-th ordinary power for a given m > 1. The main results are combinatorial characterizations of such complexes in the two-dimensional case. It turns out that there exist only a finite number of complexes with this property and that these complexes can be described completely. As a consequence we are able to determine all complexes for which the m-t...

Let $m_{12}$, $m_{13}$, ..., $m_{n-1,n}$ be the slopes of the $\binom{n}{2}$ lines connecting $n$ points in general position in the plane. The ideal $I_n$ of all algebraic relations among the $m_{ij}$ defines a configuration space called the {\em slope variety of the complete graph}. We prove that $I_n$ is reduced and Cohen-Macaulay, give an explicit Gr\"obner basis for it, and compute its Hilbert series combinatorially. We proceed chiefly by studying the associated Stanley-R...

We give a canonical construction of a balanced big Cohen-Macaulay algebra for a domain of finite type over $\mathbb C$ by taking ultraproducts of absolute integral closures in positive characteristic. This yields a new tight closure characterization of rational singularities in characteristic zero.

An ideal I of a local Cohen-Macaulay ring R is called a cohomologically complete intersection if H^i_I(R) = 0 for all i \neq c = height(I). Here H^i_I(R), i \in Z denotes the local cohomology of R with respect to I. For instance, a set-theoretic complete intersection is a cohomologically complete intersection. Here we study cohomologically complete intersections from various homological points of view. As a main result it is shown that the vanishing H^iI_(M) = 0 for all i \ne...

The aim of this paper is to define the notion of the Cohen-Macaulay cone of a Noetherian local domain R and to present its application to the theory of Hilbert-Kunz functions. It has been shown in Kurano's paper "Numerical equivalence defined on Chow groups of Noetherian local rings", Invent. Math. (2004), that, with a mild condition on R, the numerical Grothendieck group is a finitely generated torsion-free abelian group. The Cohen-Macaulay cone of R is a cone in the numeric...

We define and study the notion of a minimal Cohen-Macaulay simplicial complex. We prove that any Cohen-Macaulay complex is shelled over a minimal one in our sense, and we give sufficient conditions for a complex to be minimal Cohen-Macaulay. We show that many interesting examples of Cohen-Macaulay complexes in combinatorics are minimal, including Rudin's ball, Ziegler's ball, the dunce hat, and recently discovered non-partitionable Cohen-Macaulay complexes. We further provide...