On a conjecture of R. P. Stanley; part II - Quotients modulo monomial ideals

In 1982 Richard P. Stanley conjectured that any finitely generated Z(n)-graded module M over a finitely generated N-n-graded K-algebra R can be decomposed as a direct sum M = = +(t)(i=1) v(i) S-i of finitely many free modules v(i) S-i which have to satisfy some additional conditions. Besides homogeneity conditions the most important restriction is that the S-i have to be subalgebras of R of dimension at least depth M. We will study this conjecture for modules M = R/I, where R is a polynomial ring and I a monomial ideal. In particular, we will prove that Stanley's Conjecture holds for the quotient modulo any generic monomial ideal, the quotient modulo any monomial ideal in at most three variables, and for any cogeneric Cohen-Macaulay ring. Finally, we will give an outlook to Stanley decompositions of arbitrary graded polynomial modules. In particular, we obtain a more general result in the 3-variate case.