Dualizing complexes of seminormal affine semigroup rings and toric face rings

Abstract: We characterize the seminormality of an affine semigroup ring in terms of the dualizing complex, and the normality of a Cohen-Macaulay semigroup ring by the "shape" of the canonical module. We also characterize the seminormality of a toric face ring in terms of the dualizing complex. A toric face ring is a simultaneous generalization of Stanley-Reisner rings and affine semigroups.