On the factorial case of Huneke's conjecture for local cohomology modules

A conjecture raised in 1990 by C. Huneke predicts that, for a d-dimensional Noetherian local ring R, local cohomology modules of finitely generated R-modules have finitely many associated primes. Although counterexamples do exist, the conjecture has been confirmed in several cases, for instance if d 3, and witnessed some progress in special cases for higher d. In this paper, assuming that R is a factorial domain, we establish the case d=4, and under different additional conditions (in a couple of results) also the case d=5. Finally, when R is regular and contains a field, we apply the Hartshorne-Lichtenbaum vanishing theorem as a tool to deal with the case d=6.