The study of free resolutions is a core and beautiful area in
Commutative Algebra. The main goal of this book is to inspire the
readers and develop their intuition about syzygies and Hilbert
functions. Many examples are given in order to illustrate ideas and key
concepts.
A valuable feature of the book is the inclusion of open problems and
conjectures; these provide a glimpse of exciting, and often challenging,
research directions in the field. Three types of problems are presented:
Conjectures, Problems, and Open-Ended Problems. The latter do not
describe specific problems but point to interesting directions for
exploration.
The first part of the monograph contains basic background material on
graded free resolutions. Further coverage of topics includes syzygies
over a polynomial ring, resolutions over quotient rings, lex ideals and
Hilbert functions, compression, resolutions of monomial ideals, and
syzygies of toric ideals. With a clear and self-contained exposition
this text is intended for advanced graduate students and postdoctorates;
it will be also of interest to senior mathematicians.