Macaulay2 / Macaulay2/M2

Intended behavior of bracket powers

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Description

Let's focus on the characteristic-p setting, so that there is a mathematically meaningful notion of I^[p^e] for an ideal I. I would have thought that I^[p^e] is the ideal generated by p^e-th powers of the generators of I, but that is not what M2 has implemented. Is the following behavior intended?
```
S = (GF 4)[x]
I = ideal(x+a)
I^[2] -- x^2 + a, rather than x^2 + a^2 = x^2 + a + 1
radical I^[2] == radical ideal I -- fails!
```
There is a mathematically meaningful operation behind this behavior of I^[2]: it is the expansion of I along the relative Frobenius of GF 4. But I think most people in the characteristic p world would take I^[2] to mean the expansion along the *absolute* Frobenius, i.e., take p-th powers of generators (and the resulting ideal thus has the same radical as I). The existing behavior means that the usual characteristic p calculations like I^[p^e]: I occurring in Fedder's criterion give the "wrong answer" when working over GF p^e.

So, what are bracket powers intended to do?

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Research direction

No source file or test is named. Start by reproducing the supplied GF 4 example with bracket powers, radicals, and the Fedder-criterion expression; done means establishing and recording whether bracket powers should use relative or absolute Frobenius, and resolving the resulting behavior.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Domain
backend
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Active
Clarity
Needs clarification
Newbie friendliness
32/100

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