Rees algebra of maximal order Pfaffians and its diagonal subalgebras

Abstract

Given a skew-symmetric matrix X, the Pfaffian of X is defined as the square root of the determinant of X. In this article, we give the explicit defining equations of the Rees algebra of a Pfaffian ideal I generated by the maximal order Pfaffians of a generic skew-symmetric matrix. We further prove that all diagonal subalgebras of the corresponding Rees algebra of I are Koszul. We also look at Rees algebras of Pfaffian ideals of linear type associated with certain sparse skew-symmetric matrices. In particular, we consider the tridiagonal matrices and identify the corresponding Pfaffian ideals to be of Gröbner linear type and as the vertex cover ideals of unmixed bipartite graphs. As an application of our results, we conclude that all their ordinary and symbolic powers have linear quotients.