Symbolic powers of vertex cover ideals

Abstract: Let $G$ be a finite simple graph and $J(G)$ denote its cover ideal in a polynomial ring over a field $\mathbb{K}$. In this paper, we show that all symbolic powers of cover ideals of certain vertex decomposable graphs have linear quotients. Using these results, we give various conditions on a subset $S$ of the vertices of $G$ so that all symbolic powers of vertex cover ideals of $G \cup W(S)$, obtained from $G$ by adding a whisker to each vertex in $S$, have linear quotients. For instance, if $S$ is a vertex cover of $G$, then all symbolic powers of $J(G \cup W(S))$ have linear quotients. Moreover, we compute the Castelnuovo-Mumford regularity of symbolic powers of certain cover ideals.