F-rational rings and the integral closures of ideals

Abstract

We show in this paper that the Briancon-Skoda theorem holds for all ideals in F-rational rings of positive prime characteristic, and also in rings with rational singularities which are of finite type over a field of characteristic 0. Moreover, in Gorenstein F-rational rings of characteristic p we show that in many cases the bound given in the Briancon-Skoda theorem may be improved by at least one.