Structural decomposition of monomial resolutions

Abstract: We express the multigraded Betti numbers of an arbitrary monomial ideal in terms of the multigraded Betti numbers of two basic classes of ideals. This decompo- sition has multiple applications. In some concrete cases, we use it to construct minimal resolutions of classes of monomial ideals; in other cases, we use it to compute projective dimensions. To illustrate the effectiveness of the structural decomposition, we give a new proof of a classic theorem by Charalambous.