Almost Gorenstein rings - towards a theory of higher dimension -

The notion of almost Gorenstein local ring introduced by V. Barucci and R. Fr"oberg for one-dimensional Noetherian local rings which are analytically unramified has been generalized by S. Goto, N. Matsuoka and T. T. Phuong to one-dimensional Cohen-Macaulay local rings, possessing canonical ideals. The present purpose is to propose a higher-dimensional notion and develop the basic theory. The graded version is also posed and explored.