A Frobenius characterization of finite projective dimension over complete intersections

Let M be a module of finite length over a complete intersection (R,m) of characteristic \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document} $p>0$\end{document}. We characterize the property that M has finite projective dimension in terms of the asymptotic behavior of a certain length function defined using the Frobenius functor. This may be viewed as the converse to a theorem of S. Dutta. As a corollary we get that, in a complete intersection (R,m), an m-primary ideal I has finite projective dimension if and only if its Hilbert-Kunz multiplicity equals the length of R/I.