When does a perturbation of the equations preserve the normal cone

Let $(R,\mathfrak m)$ be a local ring and $I, J$ two arbitrary ideals of $R$. Let $\operatorname{gr}_J(R/I)$ denote the associated ring of $R/I$ with respect to $J$, which corresponds to the normal cone in geometry. The main result of this paper shows that if $I = (f_1,...,f_r)$, where $f_1,...,f_r$ is a $J$-filter regular sequence, there exists a number $N$ such that if $f_i' \equiv f_i \mod J^N$ and $I' = (f_1',...,f_r')$, then $\operatorname{gr}_J(R/I) \cong \operatorname{gr}_J(R/I')$. If $J$ is an $\mathfrak m$-primary ideal, this result implies a long standing conjecture of Srinivas and Trivedi on the invariance of the Hilbert-Samuel function under small perturbations, which has been solved recently by Ma, Quy and Smirnov. As a byproduct, the Artin-Rees number of $I$ and $I'$ with respect to $J$ are the same. Furthermore, we give explicit upper bounds for the smallest number $N$ with the above property. These results solve two problems raised by Ma, Quy and Smirnov. There are other interesting consequences on the invariance of the Achilles-Manaresi function, the relation type, the Castelnuovo-Mumford regularity, the Cohen-Macaulayness and the Gorensteiness of the Rees algebra of $R/I$ with respect to $J$ under small perturbation of $I$. We also prove a converse of the main result showing that the condition $I$ being generated by a $J$-filter regular sequence is the best possible for its validity. The main result can be also extended to perturbations with respect to filtrations of ideals. As a consequence, if $R$ is a power series ring, $f_1,...,f_r$ is a filter regular sequence, and $f_i'$ is the $n$-jet of $f_i$ for $n \gg 0$, then $I$ and $I'$ have the same initial ideal with respect to any Noetherian monomial order. A special case of this consequence was a conjecture of Adamus and Seyedinejad on approximations of analytic complete intersection singularities.