Melvin Hochster

On an ideal membership problem

Suppose $f_1, \dots, f_{n+1}$ are elements of a regular ring $R$, where $n := \dim R$. The first author proved that $f_1^n \cdots f_{n+1}^n \in (f_1^{n+1}, \dots, f_{n+1}^{n+1})R$; this uses the Brian\c con-Skoda theorem --- no simpler proof is known, as far as we are aware. We show here that this result is optimal in...