Local Okounkov bodies and limits in prime characteristic

Abstract

This article is concerned with the asymptotic behavior of certain sequences of ideals in rings of prime characteristic. These sequences, which we call p-families of ideals, are ubiquitous in prime characteristic commutative algebra (e.g., they occur naturally in the theories of tight closure, Hilbert–Kunz multiplicity, and F-signature). We associate to each p-family of ideals an object in Euclidean space that is analogous to the Newton–Okounkov body of a graded family of ideals, which we call a p-body. Generalizing the methods used to establish volume formulas for the Hilbert–Kunz multiplicity and F-signature of semigroup rings, we relate the volume of a p-body to a certain asymptotic invariant determined by the corresponding p-family of ideals. We apply these methods to obtain new existence results for limits in positive characteristic, an analogue of the Brunn–Minkowski theorem for Hilbert–Kunz multiplicity, and a uniformity result concerning the positivity of a p-family.