Local Complete Intersections in P2 and Koszul Syzygies 1
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN MATHEMATICAL SOCIETY Volume 131, Number 7, Pages 2007{2014 S 0002-9939(02)06804-1 Article electronically published on November 6, 2002 LOCAL COMPLETE INTERSECTIONS IN P2 AND KOSZUL SYZYGIES DAVID COX AND HAL SCHENCK (Communicated by Michael Stillman) Abstract. We study the syzygies of a codimension two ideal I = f1;f2;f3 h i⊆ k[x; y; z]. Our main result is that the module of syzygies vanishing (scheme- theoretically) at the zero locus Z = V(I) is generated by the Koszul syzygies iff Z is a local complete intersection. The proof uses a characterization of com- plete intersections due to Herzog. When I is saturated, we relate our theorem to results of Weyman and Simis and Vasconcelos. We conclude with an exam- ple of how our theorem fails for four generated local complete intersections in k[x; y; z] and we discuss generalizations to higher dimensions. 1. Introduction Let R = k[x; y; z] be the coordinate ring of P2, and consider the ideal I = f1;f2;f3 R,wherefi is homogeneous of degree di. It is well known that the fi hform a regulari⊆ sequence in R if and only if the Koszul complex f3 f2 f3 0 3 f2 f1 0 f3 − − " f1 # " 0 f1 f2# 0 R( dj) R( dj dk) − − −→ − −−−−! − − −−−−−−−−−−! j=1 j<k (1.1) X M 3 [f1 f2 f3] R( dj) I 0 − −−−−−−! −→ j=1 M is exact. (As usual R(i) denotes a shift in grading, i.e., R(i)j = Ri+j .) This paper will study the situation when I = f1;f2;f3 has codimension two in h i R.ThusZ = V(I) P2 is a zero-dimensional subscheme. We will call Z the base ⊆ point locus of f1;f2;f3. Since Z = , f1;f2;f3 no longer form a regular sequence, so that (1.1) fails to be exact. We6 ; can pinpoint the failure of exactness as follows. Lemma 1.1. If I = f1;f2;f3 has codimension two in R,then(1.1) is exact 3 h i except at R( dj). In particular, the Koszul complex of f1;f2;f3 gives the j=1 − L Received by the editors May 29, 2001 and, in revised form, February 7, 2002. 1991 Mathematics Subject Classification. Primary 14Q10; Secondary 13D02, 14Q05, 65D17. Key words and phrases. Basepoint, local complete intersection, syzygy. The second author was supported by an NSF postdoctoral research fellowship. c 2002 American Mathematical Society 2007 License or copyright restrictions may apply to redistribution; see https://www.ams.org/journal-terms-of-use 2008 DAVID COX AND HAL SCHENCK exact sequences 3 3 3 0 R( dj) R( dj dk) R( dj) and R( dj) I 0: ! − ! − − ! − − ! ! j=1 j<k j=1 j=1 X M M M Proof. The exactness of the first sequence follows from depth(I)=codim(I)=2 and the Buchsbaum-Eisenbud exactness criterion [1], and the second sequence is obviously exact. 3 To describe how (1.1) behaves at R( di), we make the following definition. j=1 − Definition 1.2. A Koszul syzygy onLf1;f2;f3 is an element of the submodule 3 K R( di) ⊆ − j=1 M generated by the columns of the matrix f2 f3 0 f1 0 f3 : 2 − 3 0 f1 f2 − − 4 5 This leads to the following corollary of Lemma 1.1. Corollary 1.3. If I = f1;f2;f3 is a codimension two ideal, then h i 3 0 R( dj) R( dj dk) K 0 −→ − −→ − − −→ −→ j=1 j<k X M is exact. By Lemma 1.1, K is a proper submodule of the syzygy module S defined by the exact sequence 3 (1.2) 0 S R( dj) I 0: −→ −→ − −→ −→ j=1 M Here is a simple example of how K and S can differ. Example 1.4. Consider the ideal I = xy; xz; yz . Then the syzygy module S is generated by the columns of the matrixh i z 0 φ = yy : 2 −0 x 3 − The generators of S are clearly not Koszul4 since5 they have degree 1. In this example, note that the generators of S do not vanish on the base point locus Z = (1; 0; 0); (0; 1; 0); (0; 0; 1) . Since the Koszul syzygies clearly vanish at the base points,f we get another wayg to see that the generators are not Koszul. The observation that Koszul syzygies vanish at the basepoints leads one to ask the question: Is every syzygy which vanishes at the base points a Koszul syzygy? Before answering this question, we need to recall what \vanishing" means. License or copyright restrictions may apply to redistribution; see https://www.ams.org/journal-terms-of-use 2 LOCAL COMPLETE INTERSECTIONS IN P 2009 Definition 1.5. A syzygy (a1;a2;a3) on the generators of I = f1;f2;f3 vanishes sat h i at the basepoint locus Z = V(I)ifai I for all i. We will let V denote the module of syzygies which vanish at the2 basepoint locus Z. (See [2, Def. 5.4] for a sheaf-theoretic version of this definition.) In this terminology, we have K V since Koszul syzygies vanish at the base points, and the above question can⊆ be rephrased as: Is K = V ? In Example 1.4, one can compute that K = V , but K = V can also occur; see [2, (5.4)] for an example. This leads to the central question6 of this paper: When is K = V ? To answer this question, we need the following definition. Definition 1.6. An ideal is a local complete intersection (lci) if it is locally gener- ated by a regular sequence. A codimension two lci in P2 is curvilinear if it is locally of the form x; yk ,wherex; y are local coordinates. h i In [2], toric methods were used to prove K = V whenever I = f1;f2;f3 R is a codimension two curvilinear local complete intersection. Theh paper [2]i⊆ also conjectured that K = V should hold in the lci case. Our main result is the following strong form of this conjecture. Theorem 1.7. If I = f1;f2;f3 R has codimension two, then K = V if and only if I is a local completeh intersection.i⊆ The proof of this theorem will be given in the next section. 2. Proof of the main theorem We begin with some preliminary definitions and results which will be used in the proof of Theorem 1.7. As in Section 1, R = k[x; y; z] with the usual grading. Definition 2.1. A submodule M of a finitely generated graded free R-module F is saturated if M = u F x; y; z u M : f 2 jh i ⊆ g Recall that the Hilbert polynomial H(M) of a finitely generated graded R-module M is the unique polynomial such that H(M)(n)=dimk Mn for n 0, where Mn is the graded piece of M in degree n. We omit the straightforward proof of the following result. Lemma 2.2. Let M N be saturated submodules of a finitely generated graded free R-module. Then M⊆ = N if and only if H(M)=H(N). Given a codimension two ideal I = f1;f2;f3 R, we define the modules K and V as in the previous section. Theseh modulesi⊆ satisfy 3 K V R( dj): ⊆ ⊆ − j=1 M We next show that they are saturated. 3 Lemma 2.3. K and V are saturated submodules of R( dj). j=1 − L License or copyright restrictions may apply to redistribution; see https://www.ams.org/journal-terms-of-use 2010 DAVID COX AND HAL SCHENCK Proof. We first consider V . Definition 1.5 implies that 3 sat (2.1) V = S I ( dj) : \ − j=1 M It is easy to see that S is saturated. Since the intersection of saturated submodules is saturated, we conclude that V is saturated. 3 Turning to K, suppose that u j=1 R( dj)satisfies x; y; z u K.Wemay assume that u is homogeneous. We2 need to− prove that u h K.i For⊆ this purpose, let L = K + Ru. Then consider theL short exact sequence 2 0 K L L=K 0; −→ −→ −→ −→ and note that L=K has finite length since Ln = Kn for n deg(u)+1. Let m = x; y; z denote the irrelevant ideal of R. We obtain a long≥ exact sequence in localh cohomologyi 0 H0 (K) H0 (L) H0 (L=K) H1 (K) : −→ m −→ m −→ m −→ m −!··· From [3, App. A.4], we know that for a graded R-module M the local cohomology i Hm(M) vanishes for i<depth M, so the exact sequence of Corollary 1.3 implies 0 1 3 0 that H (K)=H (K)= 0 .SinceL, R( dj), H (L)= 0 . This forces m m f g ! j=1 − m f g H0 (L=K; RL)= 0 : m f g 0 However, since L=K is a module of finite length, we also have Hm(L=K)=L=K. We conclude that L=K = 0 ,sothatK = L. This implies u K, as desired. f g 2 The final ingredient we need for the proof is the following result of Herzog [4] which characterizes complete intersections in the local case. 2 Theorem 2.4. Let p be the local ring of a point p P ,andlet p p be a codimension two ideal.O Then 2 I ⊆O 2 (2.2) dimk p= 2dimk p= p: I Ip ≥ O I Furthermore, equality holds if and only if p is a complete intersection in p.