Products of Ideals and Golod Rings

Abstract: In this paper, we study conditions guaranteeing that a product of ideals defines a Golod ring. We show that for a $3$-dimensional regular local ring (or $3$-variable polynomial ring) $(R , \m)$, the ideal $I \m$ always defines a Golod ring for any proper ideal $I \subset R$. We also show that non-Golod products of ideals are ubiquitous; more precisely, we prove that for any proper ideal with grade $\geq 4$, there exists an ideal $J \subseteq I$ such that $IJ$ is not Golod. We conclude by showing that if $I$ is any proper ideal in a $3$-dimensional regular local ring and $\mfa \subseteq I$ a complete intersection, then $\mfa I$ is Golod.