Étale morphism

A morphism of schemes is étale when it is flat, unramified and locally of finite presentation. For a morphism between smooth varieties of the same dimension, an invertible differential gives this property locally. A finite étale morphism over an algebraically closed field has reduced finite fibres, and their cardinalities equal its degree when the source and target are connected.

A finite étale morphism is both a finite morphism and an étale morphism. Affine-locally it is represented by a finite locally free algebra with zero module of Kähler differentials. Its fibres are finite products of finite separable field extensions. For an elliptic curve with good reduction at a prime not dividing $m$, multiplication by $m$ on its smooth proper group model is finite étale of degree $m^2$: its differential is multiplication by the unit $m$. A division torsor of a section consequently gives an unramified local extension, the good-prime input to the Weak Mordell-Weil theorem.