Hilbert Functions of Filtered Modules

In this presentation we shall deal with some aspects of the theory of Hilbert functions of modules over local rings, and we intend to guide the reader along one of the possible routes through the last three decades of progress in this area of dynamic mathematical activity. Motivated by the ever increasing interest in this field, our goal is to gather together many new developments of this theory into one place, and to present them using a unifying approach which gives self-contained and easier proofs. In this text we shall discuss many results by different authors, following essentially the direction typified by the pioneering work of J. Sally. Our personal view of the subject is most visibly expressed by the presentation of Chapters 1 and 2 in which we discuss the use of the superficial elements and related devices. Basic techniques will be stressed with the aim of reproving recent results by using a more elementary approach. Over the past few years several papers have appeared which extend classical results on the theory of Hilbert functions to the case of filtered modules. The extension of the theory to the case of general filtrations on a module has one more important motivation. Namely, we have interesting applications to the study of graded algebras which are not associated to a filtration, in particular the Fiber cone and the Sally-module. We show here that each of these algebras fits into certain short exact sequences, together with algebras associated to filtrations. Hence one can study the Hilbert function and the depth of these algebras with the aid of the know-how we got in the case of a filtration.

Minimal free resolution of a finitely generated module over a regular local ring

Numerical invariants of a minimal free resolution of a module $M$ over a regular local ring $(R, )$ can be studied by taking advantage of the rich literature on the graded case. The key is to fix suitable $ $-stable filtrations ${mathbb M} $ of $M $ and to compare the Betti numbers of $M$ with those of the associated graded module $ gr_{mathbb M}(M). $ This approach has the advantage that the same module $M$ can be detected by using different filtrations on it. It provides interesting upper bounds for the Betti numbers and we study the modules for which the extremal values are attained. Among others, the Koszul modules have this behavior. As a consequence of the main result, we extend some results by Aramova, Conca, Herzog and Hibi on the rigidity of the resolution of standard graded algebras to the local setting.

On the Chern number of a filtration

We study the first Hilbert coefficient (after the multiplicity) $e_1$ of a local ring $(A,m). $ Under various circumstances, it is also called the {bf Chern number} of the local ring $A.$ Starting from the work of D.G. Northcott in the 60s, several results have been proved which give some relationships between the Hilbert coefficients, but always assuming the Cohen-Macaulayness of the basic ring. Recent papers of S. Goto, K. Nishida, A. Corso and W. Vasconcelos pushed the interest toward a more general setting. In this paper we extend an upper bound on $e_1$ proved by S. Huckaba and T. Marley. Thus we get the Cohen-Macaulayness of the ring $A$ as a consequence of the extremal behavior of the integer $e_1.$ The result can be considered a confirm of the general philosophy of the paper of W. Vasconcelos where the Chern number is conjectured to be a measure of the distance from the Cohen-Macaulyness of $A.$ This main result of the paper is a consequence of a nice and perhaps unexpected property of superficial elements. It is essentially a kind of Sally machine for local rings. In the last section we describe an application of these results, concerning an upper bound on the multiplicity of the Sally module of a good filtration of a module which is not necessarily Cohen-Macaulay. It is an extension to the non Cohen-Macaulay case of a result of Vaz Pinto.