Decomposition of graded local cohomology tables

Let R be a polynomial ring over a field. We describe the extremal rays and the facets of the cone of local cohomology tables of finitely generated graded R-modules of dimension at most two. Moreover, we show that any point inside the cone can be written as a finite linear combination, with positive rational coefficients, of points belonging to the extremal rays of the cone. We also provide algorithms to obtain decompositions in terms of extremal points and facets.


Introduction
Let R = k[x 1 , . . . , x m ] be a polynomial ring over a field k. In 2006, Boij and Söderberg formulated two conjectures regarding the cone of Betti tables of finitely generated Cohen-Macaulay modules over R [2]. First progress towards answering the conjectures was made by Eisenbud, Fløystad, and Weyman [8], who proved the existence of modules with pure resolutions associated to any degree sequence in characteristic zero. Later on, Eisenbud and Schreyer proved the conjectures [6], and then Boij and Söderberg extended them to the non-Cohen-Macaulay case [3], using the techniques introduced in [6]. One of the main aspects of these conjectures can roughly be summarized as follows:

Here, β(−) denotes the Betti table of a finitely generated graded R-module.
At the core of the proof is the study of another object, the cone of cohomology tables of vector bundles in P m−1 . This cone is not dual to that of Betti tables in the usual sense. However, using suitable pairings, Eisenbud and Schreyer derive information about extremal rays and supporting hyperplanes of one cone from the other. They also provide decomposition algorithms for both cones. Later, in [7], the same authors extend these result to cohomology tables of coherent sheaves. The duality between Betti tables and cohomology tables was later revisited by Eisenbud and Erman in [5], who provided a categorified version. Further results on categorification for the decomposition of cohomology tables were proved by Erman and Sam in [9]. Recently, there has been interest in extending the theory to other settings: for example, [10,11] develop a Boij-Söderberg theory for coherent sheaves on Grassmannians.
In 2015, during the Bootcamp for the AMS Summer Research Institute in Algebraic Geometry at the University of Utah, Daniel Erman asked whether a theory, analogous to that for cohomology tables of coherent sheaves, could be developed for local cohomology tables of finitely generated graded R-modules. In this article, we work towards answering this question. We give a complete description of the extremal rays of the cone in dimension up to two, and we show that every local cohomology table inside the cone can be expressed as a finite sum of tables from the extremal rays. In what follows, we will view lower dimensional polynomial rings as R-modules via the isomorphisms k[x 1 , . . . , The following is the first main result of this article. To present more differences between local cohomology and sheaf cohomology, observe that, in P 1 , a decomposition of cohomology tables in terms of cohomology tables of supernatural bundles is easily seen to be finite. In fact, by taking cohomology of the exact sequence 0 → t(F) → F → F /t(F) → 0, where t(F) denotes the torsion subsheaf of the sheaf F , we obtain that it is enough to decompose the tables of t(F) and F /t(F) separately. For the latter, observe that F /t(F) is a direct sum of line bundles. For the former, using that H 1 (t(F)) = 0 and dim k H 0 (t(F)(d)) = χ(t(F)(d)) is a constant, one can decompose the table t(F)(d) using skyscraper sheaves. In the case of local cohomology tables, finiteness of the decomposition in k[x, y] is a consequence of Theorem A, but this requires a significant amount of work, as we will show in Sect. 4. In P 2 , a decomposition of sheaf cohomology tables in terms of extremal points may not be finite, as shown in [7,Example 0.3]. On the other hand, [7, Theorem 0.1] asserts that every point in the cone will be given by a convergent series of extremal points, given by supernatural cohomology tables. Given that the arguments for P 1 and k[x, y] are significantly different, there is still a possibility that the decomposition of local cohomology tables in terms of extremal points is always finite. We hope to provide an answer to this question in future work.
Another important aspect of Boij-Söderberg theory is the dual description of the cone spanned by Betti tables by non-negative functionals. In other words, while it is very hard to say when a given table is a Betti table, it is possible to characterize completely tables such that some multiple is a Betti table. We provide an answer in the following form. • 0 ≤ a 0,s for s ∈ Z, • 0 ≤ a 1,s + i≤s−1 a 2,i for s ∈ Z, • 0 ≤ a 2,s for s ∈ Z, • 0 ≤ i>s+n a 1,i + (n + 1)a 1,s+n + n−1 i=0 (i + 1)a 2,s+i for s ∈ Z and n ∈ Z ≥0 .
A fundamental aspect of our work are greedy decomposition algorithms accompanying both main theorems. In Sect. 5 and Algorithm 6.8 we explain how to decompose, in terms of extremal points of the cone, a given local cohomology table of a finitely generated k[x, y]module or a matrix satisfying the inequalities of Theorem B. We point out that the proof of Theorem A could be turned into an algorithm to obtain such a decomposition and this proof may produce a different decomposition than the one coming from the greedy algorithm of Sect. 5. The advantage of the strategy used in the proof of Theorem A is that it provides a shorter and more conceptual argument; the disadvantage is that it requires knowledge of the module M. The greedy algorithm provided in Sect. 5, while being less transparent and more computational in nature, only requires knowledge of the local cohomology table of M.

Notation and background
In what follows, let R = k[x 1 , . . . , x m ] be a polynomial ring over a field k. We will always view R with its standard grading, that is, deg(x i ) = 1 for all i. We can write R = n≥0 R n , where R n is the k-vector space spanned by the monomials in x 1 , . . . , x d of degree n. We will use m to denote the irrelevant maximal ideal n≥1 R n . Local cohomology was introduced by Grothendieck [13]. One way to define it is as follows. Given a Z-graded R-module M = n∈Z M n , we consider theČech complex: which is a complex of Z-graded modules. Each map is just a localization, up to an appropriate sign choice that makesČ • (M) into a complex. For i ∈ Z, the local cohomology modules are Z-graded Artinian R-modules. It is well-known that, if H i m (M) = 0, then depth(M) ≤ i ≤ dim(M) and these bounds are sharp. Given a finitely generated Z-graded R-module M, for j ∈ Z we let where the subscript j denotes the j-th graded component of H i m (M). It is well-known that all these dimensions are finite. We collect these numbers in a matrix with Z-many rows, and d + 1 columns: The following is the main question we investigate in this article.
where k is a field. Is there a set d of local cohomology tables of finitely generated Z-graded R-modules that satisfies the following two conditions?
(1) Given any finitely generated Z-graded R-module M with dim(M) ≤ d, there exist finitely many positive rational numbers r 1 , . . . , r s and tables H 1 , . . . , The set d is minimal, that is, none of the elements of d can be obtain as a finite positive rational linear combination of other elements from d .
Observe that, if such a set d exists, the local cohomology tables of modules from d define the extremal rays of the cone of local cohomology tables of finitely generated graded R-modules.
In relation to the above, we are also interested in a dual description of the cone, in terms of its facets. In other words, our goals include a description of the linear functionals that cut out the cone in the space of all tables.
In this article we provide an answer to Question 2.1 when d ≤ 2 (Sects. 3 and 4). We first show that, in general, the study of d reduces to understanding local cohomology tables of modules over polynomial rings in d variables. Moreover, we provide the facet description of the cone, in terms of the supporting hyperplanes, again for d ≤ 2. This is done in Sect. 6.
Both problems actually reduce to the study of local cohomology tables of finite graded modules over k [x, y], with k and infinite field, by means of the following lemma. Proof First observe that, when studying the cone of local cohomology tables, we may always extend the base field without losing any generality, using considerations along the lines of [5,Lemma 9.6]. In fact, every local cohomology table over R is naturally a local cohomology table over R = R ⊗ k ; conversely, every local cohomology table over R is a multiple of a local cohomology table over R.
We will therefore assume that k = is infinite, without losing any generality. Let M be a finitely generated graded R-module of dimension at most d. Let A = [z 1 , . . . , z t ] be a graded Noether normalization of R/ ann R (M), where t ≤ d is forced by our assumptions. We can view A as a finite graded S-module by sending y i to z i for 1 ≤ i ≤ t, and the remaining y i to zero. Since M is a finitely generated graded R/ ann R (M)-module, and S → A → R/ ann R (M) is finite, M is a finitely generated graded S-module with respect to the standard grading on S. Therefore the local cohomology table of M belongs to the cone of local cohomology tables of finite S-modules. Conversely, every finite S-module can be viewed as a finite R-module of dimension at most d via the map R → S that sends x i to y i for 1 ≤ i ≤ d, and the remaining x i to zero.

Remark 2.3
In the rest of the article, we will tacitly make use of Lemma 2.2, and study the cone of local cohomology tables of modules of dimension at most two by working with polynomial rings in at most two variables over an infinite field.
Moreover, there is little harm in working with modules with positive depth. Namely, we may decompose the

Decomposition of graded local cohomology tables in dimension one
When R = k is a field, one can immediately see that the set 0 = {[H • m (k(a))] | a ∈ Z} provides an answer to Question 2.1. Finitely generated modules over R = k[x] are also very well-understood, since R is a PID. We will show in this section that 1  (1) First assume that there exist λ r , μ s ∈ Q ≥0 such that We will reach a contradiction by specializing these equality of Z × 2 tables to specific entries. In fact, the entry (−a, 1) on the left is h 0 (k(a)) −a = 1, while every table on the right has a zero entry in that position.
(2) Now assume there exist λ r , μ s ∈ Q ≥0 such that Since the table on the left has all zeros in the first column, we readily get that λ r = 0 for all r . Moreover, since the (−a, 2) entry on the left is h 1 (k[x](a)) −a = 0, we obtain that μ s = 0 for all s < a. However, specializing at (−a − 1, 2), on the left we have h 1 (k[x](a)) −a−1 = 1, while all the tables on the right have a zero entry in that position. A contradiction.

Decomposition of graded local cohomology tables in dimension two
In this section, R will denote a polynomial ring k[x, y] over an infinite field k. Given any , with nonnegative integer entries.
, and the latter is a finitely generated module of dimension at most i. In analogy with the notation we use for local cohomology modules, given a Z-graded Rmodule L we record its Hilbert function n → dim k (L n ) in a column which we denote by [L].
To help keeping track of degrees, we will also include the index n ∈ Z as an extra column. Moreover, we usually represent such columns as rows, by taking the transpose matrix: which has a unique solution (r 0 , . . . , r s ) ∈ Q s+1 . We prove that r i ≥ 0 for all i. It is clear that Taking into account the shift by a, we finally obtain that We recall the following graded versions of Serre's condition (S k ) Definition 4.4 Let (R, m) be a standard graded k-algebra, and M be a finitely generated graded R-module. We say that M satisfies Serre's graded condition for all homogeneous ideals p ∈ Spec(R). We say that M satisfies Serre's graded condition (S k ) on the punctured spectrum if the inequality holds for all homogeneous ideals p, with p = m.
Finally, because i = d, this local cohomology module over R p is zero given that, because of our assumptions, M p is Cohen-Macaulay with dim(M p ) = dim(R p ).
The following is the main result of this section.  (a))], for a ∈ Z. Moreover, the set of such tables is minimal. Thus, the following set provides an answer to Question 2.1: Proof Let M be a finitely generated R-module, and consider its local cohomology table By Remark 2.3 we will assume that M has positive depth. Let M be the sheaf on P 1 associated to M, , and consider the composition We let N be its kernel, and P be its image. Both N and P have positive depth. Since dim(N ) ≤ 1, this forces N to be Cohen-Macaulay, and the exact sequence . Because N has dimension one, it is finite over a one-dimensional polynomial ring, and it then follows from Theorem 3.1 that we can decompose its table using elements from 2 . Therefore, in order to finish the proof, it suffices to show that we can decompose [H • m (P)] using elements from 2 . We have a short exact sequence where C has finite length. Taking local cohomology gives that H 1 m (P) ∼ = C, and H 2 . We induct on t ≥ 0. If t = 0, there is nothing to prove. If t > 0, then we let I (−a t ) = ker(R(−a t ) → C), which is an m-primary ideal. Let P = coker(I (−a t ) → P) and C = coker((R/I )(−a t ) → C), so that we have a short exact . This concludes the proof that the local cohomology table of every module can be decomposed using tables from the set 2 . It is left to show the minimality of this set. For , the strategy is completely identical to that used inside the proof of Theorem 3.1. We therefore only focus on the proof for the remaining tables.
Assume that, for λ r , μ s and τ t,u ∈ Q ≥0 , one has Here, we allow the exponent in m t to be zero, in which case we mean m 0 := R. Since the first column on the left contains all zeros, one readily sees that λ r = 0 for all r . Moreover, μ s = 0 is forced for all s, since the table on the left satisfies h 1 (m n (a)) p = 0 for p 0. Similar considerations on zeros of the second and third column rule out [H • m (m t (u))], with u = a. Finally, since the table on the left has zeros at h 1 (m n (a)) p for p ≥ n − a, we have τ t,a = 0 for t > n. If n = 0, we have reached a contradiction, since no tables on the right satisfy these requirements. If n > 0, what is left is: However, the entry h 1 (m n (a)) n−1−a on the left is equal to n, while on the right all the tables have zero entries. A contradiction, which concludes the proof.

Remark 4.7
The proof of the theorem shows that if F is a graded free R-module such that Remark 4.8 Alexandra Seceleanu has indicated to us that, quite interestingly, all modules whose local cohomology tables appear in the set 2 of Theorem 4.6 are actually graded with respect to the fine Z 2 -grading on R. Daniel Erman has pointed out that they in fact satisfy an even stronger condition, as they are GL 2 -equivariant. Assuming Question 2.1 has positive answer, it would be interesting to determine whether this is the case even in higher dimension.

An algorithm for the decomposition of local cohomology tables in k[x, y]
Let R = k[x, y], where k is a field. We now describe a greedy algorithm that, given the local cohomology table of a finitely generated graded R-module, shows how to express it in terms of tables from the set 2 described in Theorem 4.6.
Let L be a cyclic graded R-module of finite length. Recall that we are denoting by [L] its Hilbert function, that we view as a column, where the row n records the value dim k (L n ). Let a (respectively, b) be the smallest (respectively, largest) n ∈ Z such that L n = 0. By We describe an algorithm to write H as a linear combination with non-negative rational We proceed as follows: Step 1: Step 2: Let K = (k n ) n∈Z be the column that satisfies , and we STOP. If H = (h n ) n∈Z is not the zero column, we observe that h n = 0 if and only if n < a or n > b , for some 0 ≤ b < b. It takes a tedious but straightforward computation to show that H still has nonnegative entries, and it satisfies ( * b a ). We now repeat Steps 1 and 2 with H , and continue until we STOP. The process clearly terminates, since every time we have a table whose number of non-zero entries decreases at least by one.

Remark 5.2
The condition ( * b a ) in Algorithm 5.1 is just a restatement of Macaulay's Theorem, which characterizes the possible Hilbert functions of standard graded k-algebras, adapted to our setup. In particular, any cyclic R-module of finite length satisfies ( * b a ) for some a, b (see Proposition 5.5).

Notation 5.3
We call a Z × 1 matrix H that satisfies the conditions ( * b a ) of Algorithm 5.1 and that further satisfies h a = 1 and h n ∈ N for all n ∈ Z an admissible column generated in degree a. Note that we do not wish to keep track of b with this terminology. If a Z × 1 matrix can be written as a sum of t columns, each generated in degree a i , we call it an admissible column, generated in degrees a 1 , . . . , a t . Finally, given a Z × 1 matrix H , and  integers a 1 , . . . , a t , we set H (a 1 , . . . , a t ) = ( h n ) n∈Z , where h n = h n − b n , and b n is the cardinality of the set {1, . . . , t | a i = n}. We call H the truncation of H with respect to the degrees a 1 , . . . , a t .

Remark 5.4
Using this new terminology, it follows from Lemma 4.3 (or Algorithm 5.1) that every admissible column H = (h n ) n∈Z , generated in degree a, and such that h n = 0 for n > b, can be realized as a sum b−a n=0 r n [R/m n+1 (−a)], with r n ∈ Q ≥0 and b−a n=0 r n = 1.
Conversely, we observe the following: By Macaulay's Theorem, the Hilbert function of each R/I j (−a j ) is an admissible column generated in degree a j , and the proposition now follows.
We now present a series of technical lemmas regarding properties of admissible columns. These will be used in the proof of the algorithm for the decomposition. In what follows, given two columns K = (k n ) n∈Z and H = (h n ) n∈Z , we will write K ≤ H if k n ≤ h n for all n ∈ Z. Lemma 5.6 Let U = (u n ) n∈Z be an admissible column, generated in degree a, and with u n = 0 for n > b. Let V = (v n ) n∈Z be any column with non-negative entries such that for some integer a ≥ a the following conditions hold: (1) v n = 0 for n < a and n > b, (2) for all a ≤ n ≤ b we have v n ≤ n − a + 1 (This condition is automatic if V ≤ L, for some admissible column L generated in degree a.), Then W = (w n ) n∈Z , defined as w n = max{0, u n − v n }, is an admissible column, and W is still generated in degree a if a > a. Moreover, the column Z = (z n ) n∈Z defined as z n = max{0, v n − u n }, is either zero or it satisfies z n > z n−1 for all a ≤ n ≤ b, for some a ≥ a .
Proof For the first claim, the only values we need to check for w n are those corresponding to n between a and b, since w n = 0 otherwise. For a ≤ n < a we have w n = u n , so w n is admissible. For a ≤ n ≤ b, if w n = 0 there is nothing to show. Otherwise, since v n > v n−1 we have w n = u n − v n ≤ u n − v n−1 − 1. Also, note that u n ≤ u n−1 + 1 always holds. Therefore w n ≤ u n−1 − v n−1 ≤ w n−1 , and thus it is admissible. If a > a, then w n = u n = 1, so that W is generated in degree a. Now, consider the column Z . If Z = 0, then let n be an integer, with a ≤ n ≤ b. If u n = n − a + 1, then since v n ≤ n − a + 1 we must have z n = 0. On the other hand, if u j < j − a + 1 for some j, then u n+1 ≤ u n for all n ≥ j. If a is the smallest such value of j, we then have z n+1 ≥ v n + 1 − u n > z n for all a ≤ n ≤ b. Definition 5.7 Given a Z × 1 matrix T = (t n ) n∈Z , we say that T is a monotone column if 1 T (n) ≥ 0 for all n ∈ Z. Lemma 5.8 Let H = (h n ) n∈Z be an admissible column generated in degrees a 1 , . . . , a t . Assume that a 1 ≤ a 2 ≤ · · · ≤ a t . Let T = (t n ) n∈Z be a monotone column, and let P = T + H. Then P can be written as U + t i=1 K i , where: • Each K i is an admissible column, still generated in degree a i . • U is a monotone column, with U ≤ T .
• K t is the maximal admissible column generated in degree a t satisfying K t ≤ P.
Proof We let K = (k n ) n∈Z be the largest admissible column generated in degree a t , satisfying K ≤ P. In other words, if P = ( p n ) n∈Z , we have k n = min{ p n , n − a t + 1} for all n ≥ a t , and k n = 0 otherwise.

Claim 5.9
If we let c = min{n ∈ Z | n ≥ a t , k n ≤ k n−1 }, then k n = p n for all n ≥ c.

Proof of the Claim
Observe that 1 = k a t > k a t −1 = 0, therefore c > a t . Moreover, by maximality of K , if k n > k n−1 , we also have k n+1 > k n , as long as k n + 1 ≤ p n+1 . Therefore, since k c−1 > k c−2 but k c ≤ k c−1 , we must have k c−1 + 1 > p c . In particular, by maximality we have k c = p c . Now we recall that H = T + H 1 + · · · + H t , where each H i is admissible, generated in degree a i , and T is monotone. For i = 1, . . . , t, if we set H i = (h i,n ) n∈Z , we then have p n = t n + i h i,n for all n ∈ Z. Observe that, for all i, we have h i,c ≤ p c = k c ≤ k c−1 ≤ c − a t ≤ c − a i < c − a i + 1. In particular, for each H i to be admissible, we must have h i,n+1 ≤ h i,n for all n ≥ c. The same type of inequality holds for T , just because it is a monotone column: t n+1 ≤ t n for all n ∈ Z and, in particular, for n ≥ c. It follows that p n+1 ≤ p n for all n ≥ c, and by maximality of K we then have k n = p n for all n ≥ c. This proves the claim.
For c as in Claim 5.9, and all i = 1, . . . , t, define H i = (h i,n ) n∈Z as follows: h i,n = h i,n for all n < c, and h i,n = 0 for all n ≥ c. Observe that all the columns H i are still admissible, generated in degree a i . Similarly, we define T = (t n ) n∈Z as follows: t n = t n for n < c, and t n = 0 for n ≥ c. Observe that T is still monotone, with T ≤ T . Now, we observe that K ≥ H t , by maximality of K . We define Z t = (z t,n ) n∈Z as z t,n = k n − h t,n for n < c, and z n,t = 0 for n ≥ c. By Claim 5.9, we have that k n > k n−1 for all a t ≤ n < c. Because of this inequality, and since K is admissible, we can apply Lemma 5.6 with U = H t and V = K . We then obtain that either Z t = 0, or z t,n > z t,n−1 for all b t ≤ n < c, for some b t > a t , and z t,n = 0. In case Z t = 0, we then have that p n = t n + h 1,n + · · · + h t−1,n + k n for all n < c, and p n = k n for n ≥ c. Thus: is the desired decomposition, setting U = T , K i = H i for all i = 1, . . . , t − 1, and K t = K . If Z t = 0, observe that z t,n is either zero, or it satisfies z t,n ≤ k n ≤ n − a t + 1, Moreover, since z t,n > z t,n−1 for b t ≤ n < c, we can apply Lemma 5.6 applied to U = H t−1 and V = Z t . We then get that W t−1 = (w t−1,n ) n∈Z , defined as w t−1,n = max{0, h t−1,n − z t,n }, is admissible, generated in degree a t−1 . Moreover, Z t−1 = (z t−1,n ) n∈Z , defined as z t−1,n = max{0, z t,n − h t−1,n } is either zero, or it satisfies z t−1,n > z t−1,n−1 for b t−1 ≤ n < c, for some b t−1 ≥ b t . In case Z t−1 = 0, we have P = T + H 1 + · · · + H t−2 + W t−1 + K , using the fact that for n < c one has p n = t n +h 1,n +· · ·+h t−2,n +w t−1,n +k n = h t−1,n +h t,n , while for n ≥ c one has p n = k n . In this case, we can set U = T , K i = H i for i = 1, . . . , t 2 , K t−1 = W t−1 , K t = K and we have the desired decomposition. If Z t−1 = 0, observe that z t−1,n is either zero, or z t−1,n ≤ k n ≤ n − a t + 1; moreover, z t−1,n > z t−1,n−1 for all b t−1 ≤ n < c. We can apply again Lemma 5.6 to U = H t−2 and V = Z t−1 to obtain a column W t−2 that is admissible, generated in degree a t−2 , and a column Z t−2 = (z t−2,n ) n∈Z defined as z t−2,n = max{0, z t−1,n − h t−2,n }. As before, we have that Z t−2 is either zero, or it satisfies z t−2,n > z t−2,n−1 for all b t−2 ≤ n < c, with b t−2 ≥ b t−1 . In the first case, similar to the case above, we now have Repeating this way, we either eventually get Z j = 0 for some j, in which case We can then set U = T , . . , t − 1, and K t = K . Otherwise, we have constructed admissible columns W 1 , W 2 , . . . , W t−1 , generated in degrees a 1 , . . . , a t−1 , and we have a column Z 1 = (z 1,n ) n∈Z that satisfies z 1,n > z 1,n−1 for b 1 ≤ n < c, and Z 1 ≤ T by construction, since we started with K ≤ P. We observe that U = T − Z 1 is still monotone since z 1,n > z 1,n−1 for b 1 ≤ n < c, and t n = z 1,n = 0 for n ≥ c. Moreover, we have U ≤ T ≤ T . Choosing K i = W i for all i = 1, . . . , t − 1 and K t = K , we finally have P = U + K 1 + · · · + K t , as desired.
We would like to stress the fact that one should think of K t in Lemma 5.8 as the "maximal" admissible column generated in the highest degree a t , that can be subtracted from P = T + H .
We illustrate this construction with a concrete example.

Example 5.10
Let us represent an admissible column H = (h n ) generated in degree a in the following way: we place a filled star in row a, and h n -many empty circles in row n, with n = a. For example, the following drawing below represents the admissible column A = (a n ) n∈Z , generated in degree −2, with a −1 = 2, a 0 = 3, a 1 = 3, a 2 = 2, a 3 = 1, and a n = 0 for n < −2 or n > 3: . . .
Moreover, we are going to represent a monotone column T = (t n ) n∈Z by placing t n empty circles on line n. For example, the following drawing represents the monotone column that satisfies t n = 3 for n ≤ −1, t 0 = 2, t n = 1 for n = 1, 2, 3, and t n = 0 for n ≥ 4: Consider the following three admissible columns, generated in degrees −2, −2 and 0 respectively: . . .
Taking their sum with the monotone column T defined above, we obtain We can rewrite P, for instance, as the sum of U = . . .
Observe that all columns K 1 , K 2 and K 3 are still admissible, and they are still generated in the same degrees as the starting ones. Moreover, K = K 3 is the maximal admissible column generated in degree 1 such that K ≤ P. Additionally, U is monotone, with U ≤ T .

Remark 5.11
As a consequence of Lemma 5.8, given any admissible column H generated in degrees a 1 ≤ · · · ≤ a t , and any monotone column T , we can always construct an admissible column K t , generated in the largest degree a t , such that T + H − K t can be written as U + K , with K an admissible column generated in degrees a 1 , . . . , a t−1 , and U a monotone column with U ≤ T .
We observe that the same column can be admissible with respect to different degrees of generators. The following lemma allows us to extend the generating set, under certain assumptions.

Lemma 5.12
Let H be an admissible column generated in degrees a 1 , . . . , a t . Let a ∈ Z, and assume that the truncation H (a 1 , . . . , a t ) = ( h n ) n∈Z satisfies h a > 0. Then H is an  admissible column, generated in degrees a, a 1 , . . . , a t . Proof Write H = H 1 + · · · + H t , where each H i is an admissible column, generated in degree a i . Since we are assuming that H (a 1 , . . . , a t ) a > 0, we must have H i (a i ) a > 0 for some i. Say i = 1. We consider K to be the maximal admissible column, generated in degree a, that satisfies K ≤ H 1 (a 1 ). We claim that W = H 1 − K is an admissible column, generated in degree a 1 . In fact, let W = (w n ) n∈Z , H 1 = (h n ) n∈Z , and K = (k n ) n∈Z . Since K ≤ H 1 (a 1 ), and K is generated in degree a, we necessarily have a > a 1 . Moreover, we have w n = h n for all n < a. In particular, w n = 0 for n < a 1 and w a 1 = 1. To show that W is admissible, we distinguish a few cases. For n < a, w n = h n , so satisfies the conditions to be admissible. For n ≥ a, first assume that h n−1 = n − a 1 , which is the maximal possible value for H 1 in that degree. Since K is chosen to be maximal, we then must have k n−1 = n − a; observe that k n−1 = n − a < n − a 1 = h n−1 . Moreover, we will have h n ≤ n − a 1 + 1 because H 1 is admissible, and k n = min{h n , n − a + 1}, again by maximality. In particular, we have w n−1 = h n−1 − k n−1 = (n − a 1 ) − (n − a) = a − a 1 , and w n = h n − k n ≤ (n + 1 − a 1 ) − (n + 1 − a) = a − a 1 = w n−1 . So W would be admissible in this case. On the other hand, if h n−1 < n − a, by maximality we still have k n−1 = min{h n−1 , n − a}. Thus w n−1 = h n−1 − min{h n−1 , n − a} = max{0, h n−1 − n + a}. We also have h n ≤ h n−1 , because H 1 is admissible, and k n = min{h n−1 , n − a + 1}, by maximality. Therefore we get w n ≤ max{0, h n−1 − n + a − 1} ≤ max{0, h n−1 − n + a} = w n−1 . Either way, W is admissible. This shows that H = W + K + H 2 + . . .+ H t is admissible, generated in degrees a, a 1 , . . . , a t .
We are now ready to describe the algorithm. By collecting the values of a from Step 2 that correspond to h 1 a > 0, we obtain a sequence of integers a 1 ≥ a 2 ≥ · · · ≥ a t that satisfies the following three conditions: (1) First column equal to zero.
(2) Second column equal to K . In particular, by Remark 5.11, the second column of the table consists of all zeros, we will disregard it. The first meaningful step in the algorithm is Step 3: a = −5 gives an admissible column K = (k n ) n∈Z , generated in degree −5, that we can write as (5)  Next, for a = −6 we construct an admissible column K = (k n ) n∈Z , generated in degree −6, as follows:

Facets of the cone of local cohomology tables in dimension two
We adopt the following notation. In the space of 3 × Z-matrices let M denote the subspace formed by the matrices with finitely many nonzero entries. We consider the cone C ⊆ M generated by the matrices i · · · s + n + 1 s + n · · · s + 1 s · · · γ 0,i 0 0 This map is injective, and the extreme rays 2 from Theorem 4.6 map to 2 (hence, the notation). Thus the cone C corresponds to the cone of the local cohomology tables.
The space M is naturally filtered by bounding the support of its elements: We let H be the set of functionals on the space M defined by these equations.
We want to show that for all a < b the cone C [a,b] is cut by the hyperplanes defined by the functionals belonging to H, thus proving that H give the facet equations of C = ∪C [a,b] . By invariance under shifts, it is enough to consider C [0,d] . For d ≥ 0, consider the following list of functionals  [0,d] . In other words, removing any of the functionals would define a strictly larger cone than D [0,d] . It then follows from Theorem 6.2 that C [0,d] has an equal number of extremal rays and facets. In fact, computations on Macaulay 2 suggest that the entire f -vector is symmetric. This may make the reader suspect that C [0,d] is selfdual, however, the incidence matrix of C [0,4] cannot be turned into a symmetric matrix by reordering rays and facets: there is precisely one facet which contains 14 extreme rays, τ 3 (x) = 0, but two extreme rays that belong to 14 facets, E 1,3 and E 1,4 . It is still possible, although unlikely, that the entire cone C is self-dual.

Proofs
We start with lemmas describing relations between 2 and H.

Definition 6.5 For
Proof It is straightforward to check the functionals φ s , μ s , and τ s . Recall that from which it is also clear that π 0,s ( d−1−k (k)) = max(0, s − d + k). Now, we consider π n,s with n > 0 starting with s ≤ d − 1 − k. By the formula for π n,s , we get (recall that s + n < d) that 1 + k = 0.
If d − 1 − k < s, then we only have contribution from γ 1,s : The following relations on our equations are essential for the algorithm.

Proof
Step 0: Replace A by A − a 2,d E 2,d − d i=0 a 0,i E 0,i . Set w = d. Proceed to Step 1.
Step 1: If w = 0 then proceed to Step 3. Replace A with A − a 2,w−1 E 2,w−1 . Set k = 1 and proceed to Step 2.
Step 3: Replace A with A − d i=0 a 1,i E 1,i .
Proof Both cycles described in the algorithm are finite, so it will terminate in finitely many steps. We need to show that A = 0 at the end of the algorithm and all appearing coefficients are non-negative. We will use induction on d. In the base case of d = 1 we note that the algorithm provides us the decomposition By the induction hypothesis, we may assume that a 2,d−k−2 = · · · = a 2,d = 0. If m = φ d−1−k (A) then a 2,d−k−1 = · · · = a 2,d = 0 and we are done. Otherwise, m = π n,s (A)/π n,s ( d−1−k (k)), so π n,s (A ) = 0. If n > 0, then d + 1 − k ≤ s ≤ d − n − 1, so we may use Lemma 6.7 to show that π 0,s+n (A ) = 0. If n = 0, then necessarily d + 1 − k ≤ s ≤ d, so we may use again Lemma 6.7 and the fact that A ∈ D [0,d] to show that π 0,d (A ) = 0 as well.
If a 2,0 = · · · = a 2,d = 0, then the equations T i and P 0,d show that a 1,i ≥ 0 for 0 ≤ i ≤ d. Hence when we are moved to Step 3, we subtract a positive linear combination of E 1,i and the resulting table is 0. Otherwise, when we leave Step 2, a 0,d = a 1,d = a 2,d = 0 and we may now consider A as a table in D [0,d−1] by Remark 6.3. This concludes the induction step.