The main goal of this paper is to deduce (from a recent resolution of singularities result of Gabber) the following fact: (effective) Chow motives with ℤ[1/p]-coefficients over a perfect field k of characteristic p generate the category DMeffgm[1/p] (of effective geometric Voevodsky’s motives with ℤ[1/p]-coefficients). It follows that DMeffgm[1/p] can be endowed with a Chow weight structure wChow whose heart is Choweff[1/p] (weight structures were introduced in a preceding paper, where the existence of wChow for DMeffgmℚ was also proved). As shown in previous papers, this statement immediately yields the existence of a conservative weight complex functor DMeffgm[1/p]→Kb (Choweff [1/p])(which induces an isomorphism on K0-groups), as well as the existence of canonical and functorial (Chow)-weight spectral sequences and weight filtrations for any cohomology theory on DMeffgm[1/p] . We also mention a certain Chow t-structure for DMeff−[1/p]and relate it with unramified cohomology.

Let 𝔞 be an ideal of a Noetherian ring R. Let s be a nonnegative integer and let M and N be two R-modules such that ExtjR(M/𝔞M,Hi𝔞(N)) is finite for all i<s and all j≥0 . We show that HomR (R/𝔞,Hs𝔞(M,N))is finite provided ExtsR(M/𝔞M,N)is a finite R-module. In addition, for finite R-modules M and N, we prove that if Hi𝔞(M,N)is minimax for all i<s, then HomR (R/𝔞,Hs𝔞(M,N))is finite. These are two generalizations of the result of Brodmann and Lashgari [‘A finiteness result for associated primes of local cohomology modules’, Proc. Amer. Math. Soc. 128 (2000), 2851–2853] and a recent result due to Chu [‘Cofiniteness and finiteness of generalized local cohomology modules’, Bull. Aust. Math. Soc. 80 (2009), 244–250]. We also introduce a generalization of the concept of cofiniteness and recover some results for it.

Green’s conjecture predicts than one can read off special linear series on an algebraic curve, by looking at the syzygies of its canonical embedding. We extend Voisin’s results on syzygies of K3 sections, to the case of K3 surfaces with arbitrary Picard lattice. This, coupled with results of Voisin and Hirschowitz–Ramanan, provides a complete solution to Green’s conjecture for smooth curves on arbitrary K3 surfaces.

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.

Let I be an ideal of a commutative Noetherian local ring R, and M and N two finitely generated modules. Let t be a positive integer. We mainly prove that (i) if HIi(M,N) is Artinian for all i<t, then HIi(M,N) is I-cofinite for all i<t and Hom(R/I,HIt(M,N)) is finitely generated; (ii) if d=pd(M)<∞ and dim N=n<∞, then HId+n(M,N) is I-cofinite. We also prove that if M is a nonzero cyclic R-module, then HIi(N) is finitely generated for all i<t if and only if HIi(M,N) is finitely generated for all i<t.

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.

Let (R,𝔪) be a commutative Noetherian local ring, let I be an ideal of R and let M and N be finitely generated R-modules. Assume that , . First, we give the formula for the attached primes of the top generalized local cohomology module HId+n(M,N); later, we prove that if Att(HId+n(M,N))=Att(HJd+n(M,N)), then HId+n(M,N)=HJd+n(M,N).

A notion of Hochschild cohomology HH*(𝒜) of an abelian category 𝒜 was defined by Lowen and Van den Bergh (Adv. Math. 198 (2005), 172–221). They also showed the existence of a characteristic morphism χ from the Hochschild cohomology of 𝒜 into the graded centre ℨ*(Db(𝒜)) of the bounded derived category of 𝒜. An element c∈HH2(𝒜) corresponds to a first-order deformation 𝒜c of 𝒜 (Lowen and Van den Bergh, Trans. Amer. Math. Soc. 358 (2006), 5441–5483). The problem of deforming an object M∈Db(𝒜) to Db(𝒜c) was treated by Lowen (Comm. Algebra 33 (2005), 3195–3223). In this paper we show that the element χ(c)M∈Ext𝒜2(M,M) is precisely the obstruction to deforming M to Db(𝒜c). Hence, this paper provides a missing link between the above works. Finally we discuss some implications of these facts in the direction of a ‘derived deformation theory’.

We describe an algorithm for computing parameter-test-ideals in certain local Cohen–Macaulay rings. The algorithm is based on the study of a Frobenius map on the injective hull of the residue field of the ring and on the application of Sharp’s notion of ‘special ideals’. Our techniques also provide an algorithm for computing indices of nilpotency of Frobenius actions on top local cohomology modules of the ring and on the injective hull of its residue field. The study of nilpotent elements on injective hulls of residue fields also yields a great simplification of the proof of the celebrated result in the article Generators of D-modules in positive characteristic (J. Alvarez-Montaner, M. Blickle and G. Lyubeznik, Math. Res. Lett. 12 (2005), 459–473).

In this paper we prove that most ropes of arbitrary multiplicity supported on smooth curves can be smoothed. By a rope being smoothable we mean that the rope is the flat limit of a family of smooth, irreducible curves. To construct a smoothing, we connect, on the one hand, deformations of a finite morphism to projective space and, on the other hand, morphisms from a rope to projective space. We also prove a general result of independent interest, namely that finite covers onto smooth irreducible curves embedded in projective space can be deformed to a family of 1:1 maps. We apply our general theory to prove the smoothing of ropes of multiplicity 3 on P1. Even though this paper focuses on ropes of dimension 1, our method yields a general approach to deal with the smoothing of ropes of higher dimension.

Heitmann’s proof of the direct summand conjecture has opened a new approach to the study of homological conjectures in mixed characteristic. Inspired by his work and by the methods of almost ring theory, we discuss a normalized length for certain torsion modules, which was introduced by Faltings. Using the normalized length and the Frobenius map, we prove some results of local cohomology for local rings in mixed characteristic, which has an immediate implication for the subject of splinters studied by Singh.

Let M and N be finitely generated and graded modules over a standard positive graded commutative Noetherian ring R, with irrelevant ideal R+. Let be the nth component of the graded generalized local cohomology module . In this paper we study the asymptotic behavior of Assf R+ () as n → –∞ whenever k is the least integer j for which the ordinary local cohomology module is not finitely generated.

Let R be a commutative Noetherian ring with nonzero identity and let M be a finitely generated R-module. In this paper, we prove that if an ideal I of R is generated by a u.s.d-sequence on M then the local cohomology module (M) is I-cofinite. Furthermore, for any system of ideals Φ of R, we study the cofiniteness problem in the context of general local cohomology modules.

Throughout this paper A is a commutative noetherian ring (with identity) and M is an A-module. We use to denote, for i ≥ 0, the i-th right derived functor of the local cohomology functor L with respect to an ideal a of A [8; 2.1].

Let R be an associative ring which is not necessarily commutative. For any torsion theory τ on the category of left R-modules and for any nonnegative integer n we define and study the notion of the nth local cohomology functor with respect to τ. For suitably nice rings a bound for the nonvanishing of these functors is given in terms of the τ-dimension of the modules.