Bounds on cohomological support varieties

Abstract

Over a local ring R R , the theory of cohomological support varieties attaches to any bounded complex M M of finitely generated R R -modules an algebraic variety V R ( M ) {\mathrm {V}}_R(M) that encodes homological properties of M M . We give lower bounds for the dimension of V R ( M ) {\mathrm {V}}_R(M) in terms of classical invariants of R R . In particular, when R R is Cohen–Macaulay and not complete intersection we find that there are always varieties that cannot be realized as the cohomological support of any complex. When M M has finite projective dimension, we also give an upper bound for dim ⁡ V R ( M ) \dim {\mathrm {V}}_R(M) in terms of the dimension of the radical of the homotopy Lie algebra of R R . This leads to an improvement of a bound due to Avramov, Buchweitz, Iyengar, and Miller on the Loewy lengths of finite free complexes, and it recovers a result of Avramov and Halperin on the homotopy Lie algebra of R R . Finally, we completely classify the varieties that can occur as the cohomological support of a complex over a Golod ring.