Algebraic Properties of the Path Ideal of a Tree

The path ideal (of length t ≥ 2) of a directed graph Γ is the monomial ideal, denoted I t (Γ), whose generators correspond to the directed paths of length t in Γ. We study some of the algebraic properties of I t (Γ) when Γ is a tree. We first show that I t (Γ) is the facet ideal of a simplicial tree. As a consequence, the quotient ring R/I t (Γ) is always sequentially Cohen–Macaulay, and the Betti numbers of R/I t (Γ) do not depend upon the …