On ideals with the Rees property

Abstract: A homogeneous ideal $I$ of a polynomial ring $S$ is said to have the Rees property if, for any homogeneous ideal $J \subset S $ which contains $I$, the number of generators of $J$ is smaller than or equal to that of $I$. A homogeneous ideal $I \subset S$ is said to be $\mathfrak m$-full if $\mathfrak mI:y=I$ for some $y \in \mathfrak m$, where $\mathfrak m$ is the graded maximal ideal of $S$. It was proved by one of the authors that $\mathfrak m$-full ideals have the Rees property and that the converse holds in a polynomial ring with two variables. In this note, we give examples of ideals which have the Rees property but are not $\mathfrak m$-full in a polynomial ring with more than two variables. To prove this result, we also show that every Artinian monomial almost complete intersection in three variables has the Sperner property.