Separating invariants and local cohomology

The study of separating invariants is a recent trend in invariant theory. For a finite group acting linearly on a vector space, a separating set is a set of invariants whose elements separate the orbits of G. In some ways, separating sets often exhibit better behavior than generating sets for the ring of invariants. We investigate the least possible cardinality of a separating set for a given G-action. Our main result is a lower bound that generalizes the classical result of Serre that if the ring of invariants is polynomial then the group action must be generated by pseudoreflections. We find these bounds to be sharp in a wide range of examples.