Dualizing complexes of seminormal affine semigroup rings and toric face rings

Abstract

We characterize the seminormality of an affine semigroup ring in terms of the dualizing complex, and the normality of a Cohen-Macaulay semigroup ring by the "shape" of the canonical module. We also characterize the seminormality of a toric face ring in terms of the dualizing complex. A toric face ring is a simultaneous generalization of Stanley-Reisner rings and affine semigroups.