Valuation rings and perfectoid rings are examples of (usually non-Noetherian) rings that behave in some sense like regular rings. We give and study an extension of the concept of regular local rings to non-Noetherian rings so that it includes valuation and perfectoid rings and it is related to Grothendieck’s definition of formal smoothness as in the Noetherian case. For that, we have to take into account the topologies. We prove a descent theorem for regularity along flat homomorphisms (in fact for homomorphisms of finite flat dimension), extending some known results from the Noetherian to the non-Noetherian case, as well as generalizing some recent results in the non-Noetherian case, such as the descent of regularity from perfectoid rings by B. Bhatt, S. Iyengar and L. Ma.

Let k be a field of characteristic zero and let $\Omega_{A/k}$ be the universally finite differential module of a k-algebra A, which is the local ring of a closed point of an algebraic or algebroid curve over k. A notorious open problem, known as Berger’s Conjecture, predicts that A must be regular if $\Omega_{A/k}$ is torsion-free. In this paper, assuming the hypotheses of the conjecture and observing that the module ${\rm Hom}_A(\Omega_{A/k}, \Omega_{A/k})$ is then isomorphic to an ideal of A, say $\mathfrak{h}$, we show that A is regular whenever the ring $A/a\mathfrak{h}$ is Gorenstein for some parameter a (and conversely). In addition, we provide various characterizations for the regularity of A in the context of the conjecture.

Let R be a d-dimensional Cohen–Macaulay (CM) local ring of minimal multiplicity. Set S := R/(f), where f := f1,. . .,fc is an R-regular sequence. Suppose M and N are maximal CM S-modules. It is shown that if ExtSi(M, N) = 0 for some (d + c + 1) consecutive values of i ⩾ 2, then ExtSi(M, N) = 0 for all i ⩾ 1. Moreover, if this holds true, then either projdimR(M) or injdimR(N) is finite. In addition, a counterpart of this result for Tor-modules is provided. Furthermore, we give a number of necessary and sufficient conditions for a CM local ring of minimal multiplicity to be regular or Gorenstein. These conditions are based on vanishing of certain Exts or Tors involving homomorphic images of syzygy modules of the residue field.

For a commutative ring $R$, a polynomial$f\,\in \,R[x]$ is called separable if $R[x]/f$ is a separable $R$-algebra. We derive formulae for the number of separable polynomials when $R\,=\,\mathbb{Z}/n$, extending a result of L. Carlitz. For instance, we show that the number of polynomials in $\mathbb{Z}/n[x]$ that are separable is $\phi (n){{n}^{d}}{{\prod }_{i}}(1\,-\,p_{i}^{-d})$, where $n\,=\,\prod p_{i}^{{{k}_{i}}}$ is the prime factorisation of $n$ and $\phi $ is Euler’s totient function.

We address two aspects of finitely generated modules of finite projective dimension over local rings and their connection in between: embeddability and grade of order ideals of minimal generators of syzygies. We provide a solution of the embeddability problem and prove important reductions and special cases of the order ideal conjecture. In particular, we derive that, in any local ring R of mixed characteristic p > 0, where p is a nonzero divisor, if I is an ideal of finite projective dimension over R and p 𝜖 I or p is a nonzero divisor on R/I, then every minimal generator of I is a nonzero divisor. Hence, if P is a prime ideal of finite projective dimension in a local ring R, then every minimal generator of P is a nonzero divisor in R.

We prove new cases of the direct summand conjecture using fundamental theorems in p-adic Hodge theory due to Faltings. The cases tackled include the ones when the ramification locus lies entirely in characteristic p.

In this paper, we investigate the lower bound sHK(p, d) of Hilbert-Kunz multiplicities for non-regular unmixed local rings of Krull dimension d containing a field of characteristic p > 0. Especially, we focus on three-dimensional local rings. In fact, as a main result, we will prove that sHK (p, 3) = 4/3 and that a three-dimensional complete local ring of Hilbert-Kunz multiplicity 4/3 is isomorphic to the non-degenerate quadric hypersurface k[[X, Y, Z,W]]/(X2 + Y2 + Z2 + W2) under mild conditions.

Furthermore, we pose a generalization of the main theorem to the case of dim A ≥ 4 as a conjecture, and show that it is also true in case dim A = 4 using the similar method as in the proof of the main theorem.

Let = ℝ or ℂ. Let U be an open subset of n. Let X be a closed analytic subset of U and let Z be a proper closed analytic subset of X. Let M(X;Z) denote the ring of meromorphic functions on Xwhose poles lie in Z. Let M be the families of formal power series generated by a finite sequence ƒi,… ,ƒq ∈ M(X; Z) ⟦ y⟧p (For details, see § 2).