An ideal in a polynomial ring encodes a system of linear partial differential equations with constant coefficients. Primary decomposition organizes the solutions to the PDE. This paper develops a novel structure theory for primary ideals in a polynomial ring. We characterize primary ideals in terms of PDE, punctual Hilbert schemes, relative Weyl algebras, and the join construction. Solving the PDE described by a primary ideal amounts to computing Noetherian operators in the sense of Ehrenpreis and Palamodov. We develop new algorithms for this task, and we present efficient implementations. Keywords primary ideals • linear partial differential equations • Noetherian operators • differential operators • punctual Hilbert scheme • Weyl algebra • join of ideals • symbolic powers. Mathematics Subject Classification (2010) 13N10 • 35E05 • 13N99 • 13A15.

We give formulas and effective sharp bounds for the degree of multi-graded rational maps and provide some effective and computable criteria for birationality in terms of their algebraic and geometric properties. We also extend the Jacobian dual criterion to the multi-graded setting. Our approach is based on the study of blow-up algebras, including syzygies, of the ideal generated by the defining polynomials of the rational map. A key ingredient is a new algebra that we call the saturated special fiber ring, which turns out to be a fundamental tool to analyze the degree of a rational map. We also provide a very effective birationality criterion and a complete description of the equations of the associated Rees algebra of a particular class of plane rational maps.

We introduce differential primary decompositions for ideals in a commutative ring. Ideal membership is characterized by differential conditions. The minimal number of conditions needed is the arithmetic multiplicity. Minimal differential primary decompositions are unique up to change of bases. Our results generalize the construction of Noetherian operators for primary ideals in the analytic theory of Ehrenpreis-Palamodov, and they offer a concise method for representing affine schemes. The case of modules is also addressed. We implemented an algorithm in Macaulay2 that computes the minimal decomposition for an ideal in a polynomial ring.

be a multiprojective space over k, and X ⊆ P be a closed subscheme of P. We provide necessary and sufficient conditions for the positivity of the multidegrees of X. As a consequence of our methods, we show that when X is irreducible, the support of multidegrees forms a discrete algebraic polymatroid. In algebraic terms, we characterize the positivity of the mixed multiplicities of a standard multigraded algebra over an Artinian local ring, and we apply this to the positivity of mixed multiplicities of ideals. Furthermore, we use our results to recover several results in the literature in the context of combinatorial algebraic geometry.

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