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The Stacks project

47.17 Dualizing complexes and dimension functions

Our results in the local setting have the following consequence: a Noetherian ring which has a dualizing complex is a universally catenary ring of finite dimension.

Lemma 47.17.1. Let A be a Noetherian ring. Let \mathfrak p be a minimal prime of A. Then H^ i(\omega _ A^\bullet )_\mathfrak p is nonzero for exactly one i.

Proof. The complex \omega _ A^\bullet \otimes _ A A_\mathfrak p is a dualizing complex for A_\mathfrak p (Lemma 47.15.6). The dimension of A_\mathfrak p is zero as \mathfrak p is minimal. Hence the result follows from Lemma 47.16.8. \square

Let A be a Noetherian ring and let \omega _ A^\bullet be a dualizing complex. Lemma 47.15.12 allows us to define a function

\delta = \delta _{\omega _ A^\bullet } : \mathop{\mathrm{Spec}}(A) \longrightarrow \mathbf{Z}

by mapping \mathfrak p to the integer of Lemma 47.15.12 for the dualizing complex (\omega _ A^\bullet )_\mathfrak p over A_\mathfrak p (Lemma 47.15.6) and the residue field \kappa (\mathfrak p). To be precise, we define \delta (\mathfrak p) to be the unique integer such that

(\omega _ A^\bullet )_\mathfrak p[-\delta (\mathfrak p)]

is a normalized dualizing complex over the Noetherian local ring A_\mathfrak p.

Lemma 47.17.2. Let A be a Noetherian ring and let \omega _ A^\bullet be a dualizing complex. Let A \to B be a surjective ring map and let \omega _ B^\bullet = R\mathop{\mathrm{Hom}}\nolimits (B, \omega _ A^\bullet ) be the dualizing complex for B of Lemma 47.15.9. Then we have

\delta _{\omega _ B^\bullet } = \delta _{\omega _ A^\bullet }|_{\mathop{\mathrm{Spec}}(B)}

Proof. This follows from the definition of the functions and Lemma 47.16.2. \square

Lemma 47.17.3. Let A be a Noetherian ring and let \omega _ A^\bullet be a dualizing complex. The function \delta = \delta _{\omega _ A^\bullet } defined above is a dimension function (Topology, Definition 5.20.1).

Proof. Let \mathfrak p \subset \mathfrak q be an immediate specialization. We have to show that \delta (\mathfrak p) = \delta (\mathfrak q) + 1. We may replace A by A/\mathfrak p, the complex \omega _ A^\bullet by \omega _{A/\mathfrak p}^\bullet = R\mathop{\mathrm{Hom}}\nolimits (A/\mathfrak p, \omega _ A^\bullet ), the prime \mathfrak p by (0), and the prime \mathfrak q by \mathfrak q/\mathfrak p, see Lemma 47.17.2. Thus we may assume that A is a domain, \mathfrak p = (0), and \mathfrak q is a prime ideal of height 1.

Then H^ i(\omega _ A^\bullet )_{(0)} is nonzero for exactly one i, say i_0, by Lemma 47.17.1. In fact i_0 = -\delta ((0)) because (\omega _ A^\bullet )_{(0)}[-\delta ((0))] is a normalized dualizing complex over the field A_{(0)}.

On the other hand (\omega _ A^\bullet )_\mathfrak q[-\delta (\mathfrak q)] is a normalized dualizing complex for A_\mathfrak q. By Lemma 47.16.11 we see that

H^ e((\omega _ A^\bullet )_\mathfrak q[-\delta (\mathfrak q)])_{(0)} = H^{e - \delta (\mathfrak q)}(\omega _ A^\bullet )_{(0)}

is nonzero only for e = -\dim (A_\mathfrak q) = -1. We conclude

-\delta ((0)) = -1 - \delta (\mathfrak q)

as desired. \square

Lemma 47.17.4. Let A be a Noetherian ring which has a dualizing complex. Then A is universally catenary of finite dimension.

Proof. Because \mathop{\mathrm{Spec}}(A) has a dimension function by Lemma 47.17.3 it is catenary, see Topology, Lemma 5.20.2. Hence A is catenary, see Algebra, Lemma 10.105.2. It follows from Proposition 47.15.11 that A is universally catenary.

Because any dualizing complex \omega _ A^\bullet is in D^ b_{\textit{Coh}}(A) the values of the function \delta _{\omega _ A^\bullet } in minimal primes are bounded by Lemma 47.17.1. On the other hand, for a maximal ideal \mathfrak m with residue field \kappa the integer i = -\delta (\mathfrak m) is the unique integer such that \mathop{\mathrm{Ext}}\nolimits _ A^ i(\kappa , \omega _ A^\bullet ) is nonzero (Lemma 47.15.12). Since \omega _ A^\bullet has finite injective dimension these values are bounded too. Since the dimension of A is the maximal value of \delta (\mathfrak p) - \delta (\mathfrak m) where \mathfrak p \subset \mathfrak m are a pair consisting of a minimal prime and a maximal prime we find that the dimension of \mathop{\mathrm{Spec}}(A) is bounded. \square

Lemma 47.17.5. Let (A, \mathfrak m, \kappa ) be a Noetherian local ring with normalized dualizing complex \omega _ A^\bullet . Let d = \dim (A) and \omega _ A = H^{-d}(\omega _ A^\bullet ). Then

  1. the support of \omega _ A is the union of the irreducible components of \mathop{\mathrm{Spec}}(A) of dimension d,

  2. \omega _ A satisfies (S_2), see Algebra, Definition 10.157.1.

Proof. We will use Lemma 47.16.5 without further mention. By Lemma 47.16.11 the support of \omega _ A contains the irreducible components of dimension d. Let \mathfrak p \subset A be a prime. By Lemma 47.17.3 the complex (\omega _ A^\bullet )_{\mathfrak p}[-\dim (A/\mathfrak p)] is a normalized dualizing complex for A_\mathfrak p. Hence if \dim (A/\mathfrak p) + \dim (A_\mathfrak p) < d, then (\omega _ A)_\mathfrak p = 0. This proves the support of \omega _ A is the union of the irreducible components of dimension d, because the complement of this union is exactly the primes \mathfrak p of A for which \dim (A/\mathfrak p) + \dim (A_\mathfrak p) < d as A is catenary (Lemma 47.17.4). On the other hand, if \dim (A/\mathfrak p) + \dim (A_\mathfrak p) = d, then

(\omega _ A)_\mathfrak p = H^{-\dim (A_\mathfrak p)}\left( (\omega _ A^\bullet )_{\mathfrak p}[-\dim (A/\mathfrak p)] \right)

Hence in order to prove \omega _ A has (S_2) it suffices to show that the depth of \omega _ A is at least \min (\dim (A), 2). We prove this by induction on \dim (A). The case \dim (A) = 0 is trivial.

Assume \text{depth}(A) > 0. Choose a nonzerodivisor f \in \mathfrak m and set B = A/fA. Then \dim (B) = \dim (A) - 1 and we may apply the induction hypothesis to B. By Lemma 47.16.10 we see that multiplication by f is injective on \omega _ A and we get \omega _ A/f\omega _ A \subset \omega _ B. This proves the depth of \omega _ A is at least 1. If \dim (A) > 1, then \dim (B) > 0 and \omega _ B has depth > 0. Hence \omega _ A has depth > 1 and we conclude in this case.

Assume \dim (A) > 0 and \text{depth}(A) = 0. Let I = A[\mathfrak m^\infty ] and set B = A/I. Then B has depth \geq 1 and \omega _ A = \omega _ B by Lemma 47.16.9. Since we proved the result for \omega _ B above the proof is done. \square


Comments (2)

Comment #5822 by Mingchen on

A small typo: on the first line "a Noetherian ring with has", "with" should be replaced by "which"


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