On the Depth of Modular Invariant Rings for the Groups C p × C p

Let G be a finite group, k a field of characteristic p and V a finite dimensional kG -module. Let R :=Sym(V* ), the symmetric algebra over the dual spaceV* , with G acting by graded algebra automorphisms. Then it is known that the depth of the invariant ring R G is at least min{ dim(V ), dim(VP )+cc G (R )+1} . A module V for which the depth of R G attains this lower bound was called flat by Fleischmann, Kemper and Shank [13]. In this paper some of the ideas in [13] are further developed and applied to certain representations of Cp ×Cp, generating many new examples of flat modules. We introduce the useful notion of “strongly flat” modules, classifying them for the group C 2 ×C 2, as well as determining the depth of R G for any indecomposable modular representation of C 2 ×C 2.