Alexander Duality and Serre's Property $(S_i)$ for Square-free Monomial Ideals

Abstract

In this note, we study Serre's property $(S_i)$, and its relation to Alexander duality for monomial ideals in a polynomial ring over a field. We describe ideals that define the non-Cohen-Macaulay- and the non-$(S_i)$-loci of finitely generated modules over regular rings, and show that minimal prime ideals in these loci are homogeneous, in the graded case. We show that a square-free monomial ideal has property $(S_i)$ if and only if its Alexander dual has a linear resolution up to homological degree $i-1$. We prove that for square-free monomial ideals, having property $(S_2)$ is equivalent to being locally connected in codimension 1.