Permanental ideals of symmetric matrices

Abstract: In this article, we study the ideal generated by $2\times 2$ permanents of a symmetric matrix. We denote this ideal by $P_2(X)$ where $X$ is a symmetric matrix. We compute a Gr\"obner basis, dimension, depth, minimal primes, and a primary decomposition of $P_2(X)$. It can be seen that the answer is reliant on whether the characteristic of the base field is two, and thus these ideals constitute a class of ideals whose algebraic properties depend on characteristics of the base field.