Consider a reductive linear algebraic group G acting linearly on a polynomial ring S over an infinite field; key examples are the general linear group, the symplectic group, the orthogonal group, and the special linear group, with the classical representations as in Weyl’s book: For the general linear group, consider a direct sum of copies of the standard representation and copies of the dual; in the other cases, take copies of the standard representation. The invariant rings in the respective cases are determinantal rings, rings defined by Pfaffians of alternating matrices, symmetric determinantal rings and the Plücker coordinate rings of Grassmannians; these are the classical invariant rings of the title, with $S^G\subseteq S$ being the natural embedding.

Over a field of characteristic zero, a reductive group is linearly reductive, and it follows that the invariant ring $S^G$ is a pure subring of S, equivalently, $S^G$ is a direct summand of S as an $S^G$-module. Over fields of positive characteristic, reductive groups are typically no longer linearly reductive. We determine, in the positive characteristic case, precisely when the inclusion $S^G\subseteq S$ is pure. It turns out that if $S^G\subseteq S$ is pure, then either the invariant ring $S^G$ is regular or the group G is linearly reductive.

Geometric vertex decomposition and liaison are two frameworks that have been used to produce similar results about similar families of algebraic varieties. In this paper, we establish an explicit connection between these approaches. In particular, we show that each geometrically vertex decomposable ideal is linked by a sequence of elementary G-biliaisons of height $1$ to an ideal of indeterminates and, conversely, that every G-biliaison of a certain type gives rise to a geometric vertex decomposition. As a consequence, we can immediately conclude that several well-known families of ideals are glicci, including Schubert determinantal ideals, defining ideals of varieties of complexes and defining ideals of graded lower bound cluster algebras.

We study the behaviour of representation varieties of quivers with relations under the operation of node splitting. We show how splitting a node gives a correspondence between certain closed subvarieties of representation varieties for different algebras, which preserves properties like normality or having rational singularities. Furthermore, we describe how the defining equations of such closed subvarieties change under the correspondence.

By working in the ‘relative setting’ (splitting one node at a time), we demonstrate that there are many nonhereditary algebras whose irreducible components of representation varieties are all normal with rational singularities. We also obtain explicit generators of the prime defining ideals of these irreducible components. This class contains all radical square zero algebras, but also many others, as illustrated by examples throughout the paper. We also show that this is true when irreducible components are replaced by orbit closures, for a more restrictive class of algebras. Lastly, we provide applications to decompositions of moduli spaces of semistable representations of certain algebras.

In this paper, we study a family of binomial ideals defining monomial curves in the n-dimensional affine space determined by n hypersurfaces of the form $x_i^{c_i} - x_1^{u_{i1}} \cdots x_n^{u_{1n}}$ in $\Bbbk [x_1, \ldots , x_n]$ with $u_{ii} = 0, \ i\in \{ 1, \ldots , n\}$ . We prove that the monomial curves in that family are set-theoretic complete intersections. Moreover, if the monomial curve is irreducible, we compute some invariants such as genus, type and Frobenius number of the corresponding numerical semigroup. We also describe a method to produce set-theoretic complete intersection semigroup ideals of arbitrary large height.

The symbolic analytic spread of an ideal $I$ is defined in terms of the rate of growth of the minimal number of generators of its symbolic powers. In this article, we find upper bounds for the symbolic analytic spread under certain conditions in terms of other invariants of $I$. Our methods also work for more general systems of ideals. As applications, we provide bounds for the (local) Kodaira dimension of divisors, the arithmetic rank, and the Frobenius complexity. We also show sufficient conditions for an ideal to be a set-theoretic complete intersection.

We describe generators of disguised residual intersections in any commutative Noetherian ring. It is shown that, over Cohen–Macaulay rings, the disguised residual intersections and algebraic residual intersections are the same, for ideals with sliding depth. This coincidence provides structural results for algebraic residual intersections in a quite general setting. It is shown how the DG-algebra structure of Koszul homologies affects the determination of generators of residual intersections. It is shown that the Buchsbaum–Eisenbud family of complexes can be derived from the Koszul–Čech spectral sequence. This interpretation of Buchsbaum–Eisenbud families has a crucial rule to establish the above results.

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 where $I\,=\,{{I}_{X}}$ is an ideal defining an almost complete intersection (ACI) set 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-homogeneous) set $Z$ of fat points whose support is an ACI, generalizing an earlier result of Cooper et al. for homogeneous sets of triple points. We call $Z$ a fat ACI. We also show that its symbolic and ordinary powers are equal, i.e, $I_{Z}^{\left( m \right)}\,=\,I_{Z}^{m}$ for any $m\,\ge \,1$.

A central problem in liaison theory is to decide whether every arithmetically Cohen–Macaulay subscheme of projective $n$-space can be linked by a finite number of arithmetically Gorenstein schemes to a complete intersection. We show that this can indeed be achieved if the given scheme is also generically Gorenstein and we allow the links to take place in an $(n+ 1)$-dimensional projective space. For example, this result applies to all reduced arithmetically Cohen–Macaulay subschemes. We also show that every union of fat points in projective 3-space can be linked in the same space to a union of simple points in finitely many steps, and hence to a complete intersection in projective 4-space.

This paper takes a new look at ideals generated by 2×2 minors of 2×3 matrices whose entries are powers of three elements not necessarily forming a regular sequence. A special case of this is the ideals determining monomial curves in three-dimensional space, which were studied by Herzog. In the broader context studied here, these ideals are identified as Northcott ideals in the sense of Vasconcelos, and so their liaison properties are displayed. It is shown that they are set-theoretically complete intersections, revisiting the work of Bresinsky and of Valla. Even when the three elements are taken to be variables in a polynomial ring in three variables over a field, this point of view gives a larger class of ideals than just the defining ideals of monomial curves. We then characterize when the ideals in this larger class are prime, we show that they are usually radical and, using the theory of multiplicities, we give upper bounds on the number of their minimal prime ideals, one of these primes being a uniquely determined prime ideal of definition of a monomial curve. Finally, we provide examples of characteristic-dependent minimal prime and primary structures for these ideals.

In this paper we prove that a generalized version of the Minimal Resolution Conjecture given by Mustaţă holds for certain general sets of points on a smooth cubic surface $X\,\subset \,{{\mathbb{P}}^{3}}$. The main tool used is Gorenstein liaison theory and, more precisely, the relationship between the free resolutions of two linked schemes.

We generalize Gaeta’s theorem to the family of determinantal schemes. In other words, we show that the schemes defined by minors of a fixed size of a matrix with polynomial entries belong to the same G-biliaison class of a complete intersection whenever they have maximal possible codimension, given the size of the matrix and of the minors that define them.

In a recent paper, F. Zanello showed that level Artinian algebras in 3 variables can fail to have the Weak Lefschetz Property $(\text{WLP})$, and can even fail to have unimodal Hilbert function. We show that the same is true for the Artinian reduction of reduced, level sets of points in projective 3-space. Our main goal is to begin an understanding of how the geometry of a set of points can prevent its Artinian reduction from having $\text{WLP}$, which in itself is a very algebraic notion. More precisely, we produce level sets of points whose Artinian reductions have socle types 3 and 4 and arbitrary socle degree ≥ 12 (in the worst case), but fail to have $\text{WLP}$. We also produce a level set of points whose Artinian reduction fails to have unimodal Hilbert function; our example is based on Zanello's example. Finally, we show that a level set of points can have Artinian reduction that has $\text{WLP}$ but fails to have the Strong Lefschetz Property. While our constructions are all based on basic double $G$-linkage, the implementations use very different methods.