In the shadows of a hypergraph: looking for associated primes of powers of square-free monomial ideals

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to study the associated primes of powers of square-free monomial ideals. Each square-free monomial ideal corresponds uniquely to a finite simple hypergraph via the cover ideal construction, and vice versa. Let H be a finite simple hypergraph and J(H) the cover ideal of H. We define the shadows of hypergraph, H, described as a collection of smaller hypergraphs related to H under some conditions. We then investigate how the shadows of H preserve information about the associated primes of the powers of J(H). Finally, we apply our findings on shadows to study the persistence property of square-free monomial ideals and construct some examples exhibiting failure of containment.