Abstract
Given a squarefree monomial ideal \(I \subseteq R =k[x_1,\ldots ,x_n]\), we show that \(\widehat{\alpha }(I)\), the Waldschmidt constant of I, can be expressed as the optimal solution to a linear program constructed from the primary decomposition of I. By applying results from fractional graph theory, we can then express \(\widehat{\alpha }(I)\) in terms of the fractional chromatic number of a hypergraph also constructed from the primary decomposition of I. Moreover, expressing \(\widehat{\alpha }(I)\) as the solution to a linear program enables us to prove a Chudnovsky-like lower bound on \(\widehat{\alpha }(I)\), thus verifying a conjecture of Cooper–Embree–Hà–Hoefel for monomial ideals in the squarefree case. As an application, we compute the Waldschmidt constant and the resurgence for some families of squarefree monomial ideals. For example, we determine both constants for unions of general linear subspaces of \(\mathbb P^n\) with few components compared to n, and we compute the Waldschmidt constant for the Stanley–Reisner ideal of a uniform matroid.
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Acknowledgments
This project was started at the Mathematisches Forschungsinstitut Oberwolfach (MFO) as part of the mini-workshop “Ideals of Linear Subspaces, Their Symbolic Powers and Waring Problems” organized by C. Bocci, E. Carlini, E. Guardo and B. Harbourne. All the authors thank the MFO for providing a stimulating environment. Bocci acknowledges the financial support provided by GNSAGA of INdAM. Guardo acknowledges the financial support provided by PRIN 2011. Harbourne was partially supported by NSA Grant Number H98230-13-1-0213. Janssen was partially supported by Dordt College. Janssen and Seceleanu received support from MFO’s NSF Grant DMS-1049268, “NSF Junior Oberwolfach Fellows.” Nagel was partially supported by the Simons Foundation under Grant No. 317096. Van Tuyl acknowledges the financial support provided by NSERC.
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Bocci, C., Cooper, S., Guardo, E. et al. The Waldschmidt constant for squarefree monomial ideals. J Algebr Comb 44, 875–904 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10801-016-0693-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10801-016-0693-7
Keywords
- Waldschmidt constant
- Monomial ideals
- Symbolic powers
- Graphs
- Hypergraphs
- Fractional chromatic number
- Linear programming
- Resurgence