A sufficient condition for finiteness of Frobenius test exponents

Abstract

The Frobenius test exponent $\operatorname{Fte}(R)$ of a local ring $(R,\mathfrak{m})$ of prime characteristic $p > 0$ is the smallest $e_0 \in \mathbb{N}$ such that for every ideal $\mathfrak{q}$ generated by a (full) system of parameters, the Frobenius closure $\mathfrak{q}^F$ has $(\mathfrak{q}^F)^{[p^{e_0}]} = \mathfrak{q}^{[p^{e_0}]}$. We establish a suffcient condition for $\operatorname{Fte}(R)<\infty$ and use it to show that if $R$ is such that the Frobenius closure of the zero submodule in the lower local cohomology modules has finite colength, i.e. $H^j_{\mathfrak{m}}(R) / 0^F_{H^j_{\mathfrak{m}}(R)}$ is finite length for $0 \le j < \dim(R)$, then $\operatorname{Fte}(R)<\infty$.