This package gives the ability to compute symbolic powers, and related invariants, of ideals in a polynomial ring or a quotient of a polynomial ring. For example, in the context of the default behavior, symbolicPower assumes the following definition of the symbolic power of an ideal $I$, $$I^{(n)} = \cap_{p \in Ass(R/I)}(I^nR_p \cap R ),$$ as defined by M. Hochster and C. Huneke.
Alternatively, as defined in Villarreal, symbolicPower has the option to restrict to minimal primes versus use all associated primes with UseMinimalPrimes. In particular, the symbolic power of an ideal $I$ is defined as $$I^{(n)} = \cap_{p \in Min(R/I)}(I^nR_p \cap R ),$$ where $Min(R/I)$ is the set of minimal primes in $I$,
Version 2.0 of this package was accepted for publication in volume 9 of The Journal of Software for Algebra and Geometry on 20 May 2019, in the article Calculations involving symbolic powers. That version can be obtained from the journal or from the Macaulay2 source code repository.
This documentation describes version 2.0 of SymbolicPowers.
The source code from which this documentation is derived is in the file SymbolicPowers.m2.
The object SymbolicPowers is a package.