ON THE BETTI NUMBERS OF THREE FAT POINTS IN ℙ 1 × ℙ 1

Abstract

In these notes we introduce a numerical function which allows us to describe explicitly (and nonrecursively) the Betti numbers, and hence, the Hilbert function of a set Z of three fat points whose support is an almost complete intersection (ACI) in P1 × P1. A nonrecursively formula for the Betti numbers and the Hilbert function of these configurations is hard to give even for the corresponding set of five points on a special support in P2 and we did not find any kind of this result in the literature. Moreover, we also give a criterion that allows us to characterize the Hilbert functions of these special set of fat points.