Throughout, modules are finite-dimensional over , or finitely generated -free lattices when the coefficient ring is . The p-modular system has a complete discrete valuation ring , maximal ideal , fraction field of characteristic zero and residue field of characteristic .
A block of a group algebra is a nonzero, indecomposable two-sided ideal direct summand of . Equivalently it is for a primitive central idempotent . To see the equivalence, suppose as two-sided ideals and write with , . Products between and vanish because they lie in their zero intersection. Thus is the identity on , zero on , and is a central idempotent, with . Conversely . Splitting further is equivalent to splitting into orthogonal nonzero central idempotents; indecomposability is exactly primitivity. If is the block decomposition, . A nonzero indecomposable module therefore belongs to exactly one block of a group algebra, namely the one with .
For modular reduction of block idempotents, the conjugacy class sums are an -basis of . Hence . In the complete commutative algebra , idempotent lifting gives a unique lift of each idempotent of ; uniqueness follows because commuting idempotents congruent modulo the Jacobson radical are equal. Orthogonal decompositions lift too, so primitivity is preserved. Reduction gives a bijection between the integral and modular blocks.
Here is a definition of defect groups of a block which also proves the required relative-projectivity assertion. Give its conjugation action and, for , define the relative trace and its transfer ideal of conjugation-fixed elements by
A defect group of a block is a -subgroup minimal with . Such a subgroup exists: for a Sylow subgroup , is a unit in and . The defect of a block is where .
For completeness, this definition is independent of a choice up to conjugacy. Multiplying two relative traces and grouping the pairs of cosets by double cosets gives
This identity follows by writing each pair of cosets as a simultaneous -orbit; its stabilizer is , and its contribution is a trace from that stabilizer. If are both minimal for , then belongs to the displayed sum. The commutative block center is a local ring: in the field case it is a commutative Artinian ring with no nontrivial idempotents; in the integral case its reduction has this property and completeness detects units. A sum of proper ideals cannot contain its identity. Consequently for some , forcing by minimality. The same argument with an arbitrary shows that precisely when contains a conjugate of . This is the trace criterion for defect groups.
To relate this to the usual modular definition, the Brauer morphism deletes the coefficients outside the centralizer:
It is an algebra homomorphism: in the coefficient of an element centralizing in a product, acts on the contributing pairs; nonfixed orbits have size divisible by , while fixed pairs have both entries in . Its kernel is the sum of proper-subgroup transfers, because the nonfixed conjugation orbit sums form a basis of that kernel. If is minimal for and , replace by . The kernel description gives , contradicting the local-center argument. Also unless is conjugate into : group the cosets of into -orbits, which have no fixed point otherwise. Thus the minimal transfer subgroups are exactly the maximal -subgroups with nonzero Brauer morphism of .
Now take and write . Multiplication by is a -linear endomorphism of , and
Here is the splitting behind the D. Higman criterion. The natural map , , has a -linear section
Changing a representative by an element of leaves this tensor unchanged, permutes the terms, and . Hence
This is relative projectivity for , proving the Green relative projectivity theorem; indecomposability was needed only to speak of a single block of a group algebra or vertex of an indecomposable module.
Finally let lift . A trace expression for reduces to one for , so a modular defect group of a block is contained, up to conjugacy, in an integral one. Conversely choose a modular defect group and with . Conjugation orbit sums lift to . The element
reduces to its block identity, hence is a unit in that block center. Its inverse there is central, so
The integral defect is therefore contained in the modular one. The corresponding blocks have the same conjugacy class of defect groups and the same defect.
The Brauer first main theorem says that, for a fixed p-subgroup and , there is a bijection between blocks of a group algebra of with defect group of a block and blocks of with that defect group. Correspondents have the same nonzero image under . The integral version follows by modular reduction of block idempotents.
Here is a proof using relative traces. Put and
The latter ambient algebra is commutative because invariance under includes invariance under . The Brauer morphism and relative trace identity is
Indeed acts on . Its fixed cosets are exactly . On a nonfixed orbit the terms have the same Brauer image, so the orbit contributes zero in characteristic . The fixed cosets give the right-hand side. Since every element of is -fixed, this proves that is a surjective algebra homomorphism of commutative ideals. The same argument for has exactly the same target.
We use the following elementary fact about primitive idempotents under a surjection of commutative Artinian ideals. Under a surjection of ideals in finite-dimensional commutative algebras, the primitive ambient idempotents lying in and having nonzero image correspond bijectively to the primitive idempotents in . To prove it, decompose the source ambient algebra into Artinian local rings . Either , or it is a proper, hence nilpotent, ideal. Proper components contribute no idempotents to the image. A surviving identity has corner , a local quotient of , so is primitive. The surviving identities are orthogonal and exhaust the idempotents of the target. Notice that this proof does not assert that the whole kernel is nilpotent: it can kill entire block components.
By the trace criterion for defect groups proved above, primitive block idempotents in have defect conjugate into . Among them, the Brauer morphism is nonzero precisely for defect , again by that criterion and its Brauer characterization. The identical reasoning applies to . Thus both sets are identified with the primitive idempotents of , proving the bijection and its uniqueness.
For the more general subgroup, is understood to be a defect group of a block of . This is the implicit hypothesis needed to apply the theorem; it is not repeated in the printed sentence. Without it the printed uniqueness assertion is false: take , , and . The centralizer of in is , but the unique three-dimensional defect-zero block of is the bimodule restriction of each of the two three-dimensional defect-zero blocks of . The two ordinary degree-three characters both restrict to the degree-three character of , with values on its identity, involutions and elements of order three. Defect-zero reduction gives the same simple projective -module, so both restricted block bimodules are this same matrix block. This illustrates why block induction requires the block's defect centralizer. Write for its block idempotent and . Since , we have . Apply the theorem inside to obtain the unique corresponding block of . Its center of an associative algebra has a residue field , and the quotient map is its central character of a block . No assumption that is algebraically closed is needed here. Define
The Brauer image is in , so this is a unital algebra homomorphism. Among the orthogonal primitive central idempotents of , exactly one has image . The block it selects is . If contains this is the inverse of the bijection just proved. For arbitrary , the resulting block can have a strictly larger defect group. Block induction is transitive on admissible intermediate subgroups. For the normalizer chain used in the proof below, the required transitivity will be verified directly with Brauer images.
To prove the bimodule characterization, we explicitly state the standard permutation-module fact used here. For a permutation module, the Brauer quotient of a module at has as basis the permutation-basis points fixed by . An indecomposable summand has nonzero quotient at exactly when its vertex of an indecomposable module contains a conjugate of . For summands with vertex exactly , taking this quotient, with its -action, detects the summand and detects which orthogonal idempotent projection acts as its identity. These facts hold for trivial source modules; the fixed-basis description follows by deleting proper transfers, and the detection assertion is the permutation form of the first-main-theorem argument, applied to their endomorphism algebra.
As an permutation module, with , the group algebra decomposes as
The block bimodule is an indecomposable module with vertex of an indecomposable module . None of the other double-coset modules can contain : a basis element fixed by centralizes , hence lies in , whereas those double cosets lie outside . Thus occurs exactly once as an indecomposable summand of this restriction, in the term. Decomposing into its global block bimodules therefore puts this occurrence in precisely one of them, say .
Under the fixed-basis description, the quotient of at is , and multiplication by induces multiplication by . The quotient of is . Consequently the detecting projection for this occurrence of satisfies
which is equivalent to . Thus , proving the requested unique-block direct-summand characterization. Here the restriction is to ; the extra subscript in the converted TeX is a transcription error, not a different subgroup.
The objective is a continuous faithful representation of a uniform pro-p group in some . The proof proceeds from the intrinsic Lie lattice to a small matrix group, then extends the resulting representation to all of . This last step matters: a representation defined only on an open subgroup does not yet establish linearity of the original group.
Let be the Lie algebra of a uniform pro-p group and put . The uniform-group/Lie-lattice correspondence identifies the group law on with BCH. The substantial finite-dimensional Lie-theoretic input is the Ado theorem: every finite-dimensional Lie algebra over a characteristic-zero field admits a faithful finite-dimensional representation. Apply it to obtain
An Adjoint representation would not suffice here, since it kills the centre; Ado supplies injectivity even in central directions.
Choose a p-adic lattice spanning . Since has finitely many lattice generators, their representing matrices have bounded denominators. There is therefore an integer such that
On this matrix lattice the series and converge and are inverse. For example , so the valuations of the exponential terms tend to infinity with this choice of ; the logarithm terms do as well. They take values in and in respectively. The formal identity holds for the convergent series.
Under the correspondence, has Lie lattice and is an open characteristic subgroup. Define
where denotes the identification of with . A Lie homomorphism preserves BCH, so the exponential identity proves . If , the matrix logarithm gives ; faithfulness of gives . Thus is a continuous faithful integral representation of .
To extend it, take the module
Values on a transversal of determine , so is a free module over of rank . These functions are continuous, since on each open coset they are given by the continuous representation . Define . The equivariance condition is preserved, and . In a transversal basis each is a permutation of blocks followed by matrices from , so it belongs to and depends continuously on .
Faithfulness can be checked directly. If , right multiplication moves the coset to a different coset, so moves a function supported on one block and cannot be the identity. If and , evaluation at gives for every , whereas equivariance gives . Since is arbitrary, , and hence . Therefore
Compactness of makes this continuous injection a homeomorphism onto its closed image. This proves the linearity of a uniform pro-p group for the full group, including its centre, and explains why taking a sufficiently small power lattice permits matrix integration before finite-index induction restores the whole group.
Write . The Nottingham group is the set of formal series over , with ordinary composition as multiplication and the -adic topology. The identity is . A compositional inverse exists uniquely by solving its coefficients successively, since the linear coefficient is .
Equivalently is the group of continuous -automorphisms of whose action on is the identity. Such an automorphism is determined by the image of , which is . To identify this with ordinary series composition without reversing multiplication, send to the automorphism . Its composite with the automorphism for is the one for .
The depth filtration is
Each is open and normal, and the coefficient of identifies with . Thus , and is the inverse limit of its finite p-group truncations.
Here is a local-field proof that every finite p-group embeds in . We first establish the realization step rather than assume the Nottingham embedding itself. Put and , and let be the inertia subgroup, the group homomorphism kernel of the action on the algebraic closure of the residue field. We use the standard additive normal basis theorem consequence for . It follows by taking direct limits of the finite-Galois normal-basis modules, whose additive cohomology vanishes. The Artin-Schreier sequence
then gives
The classes for positive prime to are linearly independent: a nonzero finite linear combination has a most negative valuation prime to , whereas a negative valuation of is divisible by . Thus there are infinitely many independent continuous characters .
Induct on the order of a finite p-group . Choose a central subgroup and put . By induction there is an onto map with , corresponding to a totally ramified -extension. The central extension is specified by a two-cocycle. Its pullback along is a coboundary because . Correcting a set-theoretic section by that coboundary gives a continuous homomorphism lifting .
We must make the lift onto on inertia, not merely onto on the whole Galois group. Let . On , the lift takes values in . Characters vanishing on form a finite-dimensional space: has a finite subgroup and procyclic quotient , so a character is determined by finitely many values on generators of these two pieces. The infinite-dimensional character space therefore has infinitely many distinct restrictions to . Choose a character whose restriction to does not cancel , and set . Centrality of makes this another homomorphism lifting . Its image on is nontrivial and hence all of , while its image on maps onto . Therefore . The fixed field of is the required totally ramified finite Galois extension with group . This proves the realization step for every finite p-group.
Since the residue field of is still , choosing a uniformizer identifies with . Indeed successive subtraction of its residue coefficient and division by gives each element of its valuation ring a unique convergent expansion with , and fractions give the Laurent expansions. Each element of preserves the valuation and fixes , so sends to . The linear coefficient is a homomorphism . Since is a -group and , that homomorphism is trivial. Thus the faithful Galois action lies in , completing the embedding proof.
An infinite profinite group is hereditarily just infinite when every open subgroup is infinite and every nontrivial closed normal subgroup of each such open subgroup is open. We sketch the normal-subgroup argument, giving the depth calculation in odd characteristic explicitly. For series of depths ,
where . The coefficient follows by comparing and in degree : their cross terms are and .
Let be open and closed. Choose with and choose of depth . For every with , commutation with supplies an element of of depth , with any prescribed nonzero leading coefficient by varying . Thus every sufficiently high layer except possibly depths congruent to modulo occurs in .
When is odd, choose one available depth with . Such a residue exists even for . An element of that depth can be commuted with for every sufficiently large missing depth . The new leading coefficient contains , so those missing layers occur too. Hence contains an element with any chosen coefficient in every depth , for some .
Successive coefficient correction now proves : match the coefficient of an arbitrary target in depth by an element of , correct the error in depth , and continue. The partial products converge -adically to the target and remain in , which is closed. Thus is open. This proves hereditary just infiniteness for odd .
For characteristic two, the leading coefficient alone misses even depths. The standard characteristic-two normal-closure collection lemma supplies the needed extra input: for every and every nonidentity , the closed subgroup generated by the conjugates with contains for some . Its proof retains the next coefficients in pairs of group commutators to fill the parity gaps, then uses the same successive coefficient correction. Apply this lemma to and : every such conjugate lies in , so contains the tail and is open. This states the additional collection result used in the characteristic-two sketch; the odd-prime leading-term argument is not being applied there. Since every open subgroup contains a tail and is infinite, the Nottingham group is hereditarily just infinite for every prime .
For a commutative ring and a multiplicative subset containing , the universal property of localization specifies a pair with a unital ring homomorphism, such that every , , is a unit, and any unital ring homomorphism into a commutative ring that sends to units factors uniquely through . Thus there is a unique satisfying . The property determines the pair up to a unique compatible isomorphism.
For existence, take pairs and declare
The extra multiplier is essential when has zero divisors. This is an equivalence relation: for transitivity, multiply the two cross-multiplication equations by appropriate denominators and add them, using the product of their annihilating multipliers. Write the class as and define
Multiplying the defining equivalence equations verifies that these operations are well defined. They give a commutative ring, and has inverse . The required map is necessarily
It is well defined because applying to and cancelling the units equates the two images. Its addition and multiplication laws follow directly from the fraction formulas. This establishes existence and the universal property of localization. If , this construction gives the zero ring, which is allowed as a localization.
For a prime ideal , its complement is multiplicatively closed, and localization at a prime ideal means . The map
is well defined and surjective, with kernel of a ring homomorphism : a numerator has zero image exactly when it belongs to . Since is an integral domain, its field of fractions is a nonzero field, so is a proper maximal ideal. Every fraction with is a unit, with inverse . Every fraction with belongs to this proper ideal and cannot be a unit. Thus the nonunits are exactly , and every proper ideal lies within it. Consequently
Now suppose each is reduced. If is nilpotent, its image is nilpotent in every , hence is zero. If , its annihilator is a proper ideal, so choose a maximal ideal containing it. Maximal ideals in a commutative ring are prime ideals. The vanishing criterion in a module localization would give for some . But then , a contradiction. Hence is reduced. This is reducedness is detected by prime localizations; no finiteness hypothesis is needed.
The stronger local-domain condition does not force to be an integral domain. Take for a field . Its only prime ideals are and : a prime ideal must contain one of the orthogonal idempotents and , and the remaining quotient is the field . At , inverting kills the second component, so ; similarly . Both localizations are integral domains, but
is a product of nonzero elements in . Therefore the answer is no, as illustrated by domain prime localizations do not imply a domain.
Since is a finitely generated module, choose a surjection from a finite free module, . A finite free module over a left Noetherian ring is a Noetherian module, so the kernel is finitely generated. Choose a finite free module surjecting onto , then compose its map with . Its kernel is again finitely generated. Repeating constructs an exact sequence
with all finite free modules, hence finitely generated projective modules. Thus the requested projective resolution exists, without asserting that it has finite length.
Assume now that and . We may arrange a length- projective resolution with all terms finite projective. Here is why the preceding construction gives one. Set , with short exact sequences . Applying the Ext functor, whose positive degrees vanish on a projective first argument, gives by repeated dimension shifting
for every left module . The final equality follows from the existence of any length- projective resolution. Vanishing of these degree-one groups means that every short exact sequence ending in splits: its extension class is zero. In particular a free surjection onto splits, so is a projective module. It is finitely generated by the Noetherian kernel construction. Use and for to obtain
For a left finite projective module , put , a right module under . It is a right finite projective module, and its natural evaluation map
is an isomorphism. These claims hold for a finite free module by coordinates, and pass to direct summands, proving them for every finite projective module without any right-Noetherian hypothesis.
Suppose and . Computing the Ext functor from this resolution shows that its last dual map
is surjective. Since is projective as a right module, this map has a right-module section , with . Dualizing gives . Under the natural double-dual identifications, is , so this gives a left-module retraction of .
Therefore for a finite projective module . The next differential has kernel , so restricting it to gives an exact resolution with replacing and the initial removed. This has length , contradicting the definition of projective dimension. For , the nonzero is a finite projective module and a summand of some . A nonzero vector in that summand has a nonzero coordinate, so one coordinate projection restricts to a nonzero map . Thus the degree-zero Hom functor is nonzero as well. We have proved
This is top Ext detects finite projective dimension over a left Noetherian ring. The nonzero-module convention matters when : if one assigns projective dimension zero to the zero module, then is an exception. With the convention , it is outside the asserted finite nonnegative case.
For an example of infinite projective dimension, take the dual numbers over a field , and . The periodic resolution over dual numbers is
It is exact because both the kernel and image of multiplication by are the ideal , and that is also the kernel of . Applying gives a copy of in every degree and zero differentials, since acts as zero on . Consequently
A finite projective resolution would make these groups zero above its length, so
The Absolute Frobenius morphism is the identity on the underlying topological space and acts on the structure sheaf by . On an affine scheme it is induced by the ring homomorphism , . This is additive in characteristic , and the inverse image of a prime ideal is again , since exactly when . These affine maps agree under localization and hence glue.
A perfect ring of characteristic p is one whose Frobenius endomorphism is bijective. Since the Absolute Frobenius morphism fixes points, its map on the stalk at is precisely the Frobenius endomorphism of . A morphism of sheaves is an isomorphism exactly when it is an isomorphism on all stalks. Therefore
In the reverse direction the inverse sheaf map, together with the identity on points, gives the inverse morphism of locally ringed spaces. This is perfection in the Frobenius sense, not the unrelated homological use of the word perfect.
For the function field assertions below, interpret the normal schemes as integral, as is implicit in writing a single field or . General normal schemes need not be irreducible; without this interpretation those fields are not defined globally as single fields. Set . For an affine open in , finiteness gives , with finite and both rings normal domains. In fact is the integral closure of in : any element of integral over is also integral over and therefore belongs to . This local description yields the two forms of Frobenius factorization through a finite normal cover.
A morphism of schemes is a flat morphism when each local ring is a flat module over : tensoring with it preserves exact sequences. An open immersion induces isomorphisms on the local rings at its points, so it is flat.
For a closed immersion, the printed equivalence is valid with the additional hypothesis of finite presentation, for example over a locally Noetherian target, and with nonempty source. Here is the proof with that hypothesis. On an affine chart the map is , with finitely generated. If , the flat cyclic module is free over the local ring , and its residue-field dimension is one. Therefore its quotient map from is an isomorphism and . Finite generation gives a neighbourhood of on which vanishes. The closed image is consequently open. A nonempty clopen image in a connected target is the whole target; then vanishes at every prime and is zero. The immersion is an isomorphism. The converse is immediate. This proves the flat closed immersion of finite presentation assertion.
Without finite presentation, connectedness alone does not suffice. Take and let . Let consist of functions vanishing on some neighbourhood of zero. The map has kernel : multiplying such a function by a continuous cutoff equal to one at zero kills it, whereas with forces to vanish near zero. This map is surjective, because the reciprocal of any denominator nonzero at zero can be extended continuously from a small neighbourhood of zero to the whole interval. Thus
The map is both a closed immersion and a flat localization. Its source is connected because its ring is local. Its target is connected because continuous idempotent functions on the connected interval can only be the constants zero and one. It is not an isomorphism: contains nonzero functions supported away from zero. This supplies a concrete counterexample to the unrestricted assertion. The kernel is a pure ideal; this is the general mechanism behind such examples, as explained in the Stacks Project's treatment of pure ideals.
For the finite-flat fibre assertion, first note the local algebra fact that a finitely generated flat module over a local ring is free. Choose generators whose residues form a basis of , using Nakayama's lemma. If a row gives a relation , the equational criterion for flatness supplies elements and a matrix such that and . Write each as a linear combination of the , with coefficient matrix . Then . Independence modulo makes congruent to the identity. This square matrix is invertible over the local ring, and implies . Thus the chosen generators are a basis. This also justifies the cyclic-module step above; see the finite-flat local lemma.
Now let for the finite flat morphism. On each affine chart this is the finite flat algebra defining its inverse image. Hence is free over , of some finite rank . Let be the generic point of the irreducible target. Localizing that free module at gives
Every point specializes from the same , so every equals the fixed rank at . This remains valid if the irreducible target is nonreduced: one compares free ranks over its nonzero generic local ring, not necessarily over a field. The fibre is affine, and
Consequently
This is finite flat rank over an irreducible scheme. No unjustified replacement of finite flat by finite locally free on an arbitrary base is needed.
For an algebraic curve of finite type over a field, its normalization of an integral scheme is finite and birational. If flat, the preceding rank is one, since the generic fibre has the same function field. Locally its normalization algebra is therefore a free -module of rank one. The element generates: its image cannot vanish in the one-dimensional fibre algebra, and Nakayama's lemma applies. Thus is an isomorphism. Conversely the identity normalization is flat.
The parenthetical definition in the PDF does not explicitly impose finite type. One can prove the conclusion even in that broader setting without assuming a finite normalization. For any affine chart, let describe its normalization of an integral scheme. Integrality makes the map on spectra surjective; if is flat it is faithfully flat. Faithful flatness gives contraction of ideals, . For , with and , one has . Thus for some , so . Therefore on every chart. We have proved the flat normalization is an isomorphism result and, in particular,