Ideals of submaximal minors of sparse symmetric matrices

Abstract

We study the ideal of submaximal minors of a sparse generic symmetric matrix. This ideal is generated by all (n−1)-minors of a symmetric n×n matrix whose entries in the upper triangle are distinct variables or zeros, and the zeros are only allowed at off-diagonal places. The surviving off-diagonal entries are encoded in a simple graph G with n vertices. We prove that the minimal free resolution of this ideal is obtained from the case without any zeros via a simple pruning procedure, extending methods of Boocher. This allows us to compute all graded Betti numbers in terms of n and a single invariant of G. Moreover, it turns out that these ideals are always radical and have Cohen–Macaulay quotients if and only if G is either connected or has no edges at all. The key input are some new Gröbner basis results with respect to non-diagonal term orders associated to G.