b = linkageBound I
An ideal I in a polynomial ring S is licci if it Cohen-Macaulay and is linked in finitely many steps I --> (F):I, where F is a maximal regular sequence in I, to a complete intersection. Bernd Ulrich showed that if I is licci and each step of the linkage is done via a regular sequence F that is a subset of a minimal set of generators, then the linkage process will terminate after at most b steps, where
b = 2(codim I)*(degree I -1) -6.
(Theorem 2.4 of "On Licci Ideals", Contemp. Math 88 (1989). This is computed by linkageBound I. He did this via a more refined formula; the (generally sharper) intermediate result gives the bound
b = 2(numgens(Hom(I, S/I) - codim I).
The call linkageBound(I, UseNormalModule =>true) computes this refined bound. See isLicci for examples.
The crude bound can be quite large; computing the refined bound (which is often large as well) can be quite slow.
The object linkageBound is a method function with options.