On the Weak Lefschetz Property for Powers of Linear Forms

TL;DR

This paper investigates the Weak Lefschetz Property for ideals generated by powers of linear forms in polynomial rings with various numbers of variables, providing new results and conjectures about when the property holds or fails.

Contribution

It offers a detailed analysis of WLP for almost complete intersection ideals generated by powers of linear forms, including new classifications and partial proofs for specific cases and conjectures.

Findings

WLP holds for three variables but can fail in four or more variables.

Complete characterization of WLP for certain cases when r=4 and a_i are general.

Proved that for even r ≥ 6 with uniform powers, WLP holds asymptotically.

Abstract

In a recent paper, Schenck and Seceleanu showed that in three variables, any ideal generated by powers of linear forms has the Weak Lefschetz Property (WLP). This result contrasts with examples, in our previous work, of ideals in four variables generated by powers of linear forms which fail the WLP. Set $R:=k[x_1,\dots,x_r]$. Assume $1< a_1 \leq \dots \leq a_{r+1}$. In this paper, we concentrate our attention on almost complete intersection ideals $I = \langle L_1^{a_1}, \dots ,L_r^{a_r},L_{r+1}^{a_{r+1}} \rangle \subset R$ generated by powers of general linear forms $L_{i}$. Our approach is via the connection (thanks to Macaulay duality) to fat point ideals, together with a reduction to a smaller projective space. When $r=4$ we give an almost complete description of when such ideals have the WLP, leaving open only one case. When $r=5$ we solve the problem when $a_1 = \cdots = a_5 \leq a_6$. When $r \geq 6$ is even we solve the problem for uniform powers $a_1 = \cdots = a_{r+1} = d$; an asympotic version of this latter result was proven by Harbourne, Schenck and Seceleanu (see their simultaneous submission). As a special case, we prove half of their Conjecure 5.5.2, which deals with the case $d=2$. Other examples are analyzed, most notably when $r=7$, and we end up with a conjecture which says that if the number of variables $r \geq 9$ is odd and all powers have the same degree, say $d$, then the WLP fails for all $d>1$.