Duality on value semigroups

Abstract

We establish a combinatorial counterpart of the Cohen-Macaulay duality on a class of curve singularities which includes algebroid curves. For such singularities the value semigroup and the value semigroup ideals of all fractional ideals satisfy axioms that define so-called good semigroups and good semigroup ideals. We prove that each good semigroup admits a canonical good semigroup ideal which gives rise to a duality on good semigroup ideals. We show that the Cohen-Macaulay duality and our good semigroup duality are compatible under taking values.