Quotient of a local Cohen-Macaulay ring by a minimal prime

367 Views Asked by At

Let $R$ be a local Cohen-Macaulay ring. Let $P$ be a minimal prime ideal of $R$.

Is it true that $\operatorname {depth} R/P=\operatorname {depth} R$ ?

Notice that since $R$ is local Cohen-Macaulay, so $\operatorname {depth}R=\dim R=\mathrm{ht}(P)+\dim R/P =\dim R/P$.

So basically I'm asking: Is $R/P$ again a Cohen-Macaulay ring ?

1

There are 1 best solutions below

2
On BEST ANSWER

To expand on Mohan's comment, an example appears in Hartshorne's Ample subvarieties of algebraic varieties, Exercise 5.16 on p. 125. The exercise is worked out in Hartshorne's "Complete intersections in characteristic $p > 0$."

To clarify how this example is relevant, we summarize it here. Note that this example was mentioned before in this MO answer by Hailong Dao.

Example. Let $k$ be an algebraically closed field of characteristic $p > 0$. Consider the monomial subalgebra $$k[tu^3,t^3u,t^4,u^4] \subseteq k[t,u].$$ Hartshorne shows that the kernel $I$ of the surjective map $k[x,y,z,w] \twoheadrightarrow k[tu^3,t^3u,t^4,u^4]$ is generated up to radical by two elements $f$ and $g$. The ring $k[x,y,z,w]/(f,g)$ is Cohen–Macaulay since it is a complete intersection. On the other hand, its reduction (which is the quotient by the unique minimal prime) is $k[tu^3,t^3u,t^4,u^4]$, which is not Cohen–Macaulay (since the system of parameters $t^4,u^4$ is not a regular sequence).

To get a local example, just localize everything at the ideal $(x,y,z,w)$.