Local Okounkov bodies and limits in prime characteristic
arXiv:1701.02575
Abstract
This article is concerned with the asymptotic behavior of certain sequences of ideals in rings of prime characteristic. These sequences, which we call -families of ideals, are ubiquitous in prime characteristic commutative algebra (e.g., they occur naturally in the theories of tight closure, Hilbert-Kunz multiplicity, and -signature). We associate to each -family of ideals an object in Euclidean space that is analogous to the Newton-Okounkov body of a graded family of ideals, which we call a -body. Generalizing the methods used to establish volume formulas for the Hilbert-Kunz multiplicity and -signature of semigroup rings, we relate the volume of a -body to a certain asymptotic invariant determined by the corresponding -family of ideals. We apply these methods to obtain new existence results for limits in positive characteristic, an analogue of the Brunn-Minkowski theorem for Hilbert-Kunz multiplicity, and a uniformity result concerning the positivity of a -family.