On F-pure thresholds

Using the Frobenius map, we introduce a new invariant for a pair (R, a) of a ring R and an ideal a C R, which we call the F-pure threshold c(a) of a, and study its properties. We see that the F-pure threshold characterizes several ring theoretic properties. By virtue of Hara and Yoshida's result [Trans. Amer. Math. Soc. 355 (2003) 3143], the F-pure threshold c(a) in characteristic zero corresponds to the log canonical threshold lc(a) which is an important invariant in birational geometry. Using the F-pure threshold, we prove some ring theoretic properties of three-dimensional terminal singularities of characteristic zero. Also, in fixed prime characteristic, we establish several properties of the F-pure threshold similar to those of the log canonical threshold with quite simple proofs. (C) 2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.