Generalization of a connectedness result to cohomologically complete intersections

Abstract: It is a well-known result that, in projective space over a field, every set-theoretical complete intersection of positive dimension in connected in codimension one (Hartshorne [H1,3.4.6] or [H2, Theorem 1.3]). Another important connectedness result is that a local ring with disconnected punctured sprectrum has depth at most $1$ ([H1, Proposition 2.1]). The two results are related, Hartshorne calls the latter "the keystone to the proof" of the former (loc. cit). In this short note we show that the latter result generalizes smoothly from set-theoretical to cohomologically complete intersections, i. e. to ideals for which there is in terms of local cohomology no obstruction to be a complete intersection ([HeSc1], [HeSc2]). The proof is based on the fact that, for cohomologically complete intersections over a complete local ring, the endomorphism ring of the (only) local cohomology cohomology module is the ring itself ([HeSt, Theorem 2.2 (iii)]) and hence indecomposable as a module.