Formal scheme

A formal scheme is a locally ringed space with a sheaf of topological rings that is locally a formal spectrum of a complete adic ring. An ordinary scheme is the special case of the discrete topology. A formal completion of a scheme retains all infinitesimal neighbourhoods of a closed subscheme, rather than just that subscheme.

// Target: ringed-space.bigb

For a closed subscheme with ideal sheaf $\mathcal{I}$ in a locally Noetherian scheme, the completion is the formal scheme on $|Y|$ with topological structure sheaf ${\underleftarrow{\lim }}_n({\mathcal{O}}_X/{\mathcal{I}}^{n+1}){|}_{|Y|}$. On a Noetherian affine scheme $\mathrm{Spec}A$, it is $\mathrm{Spf}({\underleftarrow{\lim }}_{n}A/I^{n+1})$. Its adic topology remembers every infinitesimal neighbourhood.

// Target: commutative-algebra.bigb

Restricting the topological structure sheaf of a formal completion of a scheme to an open subscheme commutes with its inverse limit: both sheaves are ${\underleftarrow{\lim }}_n({\mathcal{O}}_U/(\mathcal{I}{|}_U{)}^{n+1})$ on $|U\cap Y|$. Equivalently, the identical infinitesimal neighbourhoods have identical restricted structure sheaves. On formal affine charts this uses completed localization of an adic ring.

// Target: toric-geometry.bigb

For a complete ring with an adic topology defined by $I$, the formal spectrum has the prime ideals containing $I$ as its points and structure sheaf ${\underleftarrow{\lim }}_n{\mathcal{O}}_{\mathrm{Spec}(A/I^{n+1})}$. On a principal open subset $D(f)$ its sections form the completed localization of an adic ring, not generally the ordinary localization $A_f$.

// Target: ringed-space.bigb