Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge / 2016 / iii / Paper 113 / 2

A fibre product of schemes $Z=X{\times }_{S}Y$ has projection morphisms to $X$ and $Y$ with equal composites to $S$, and for every scheme $T$ the induced map is a bijectionThis universal property determines $Z$ uniquely up to unique isomorphism. On affine charts over $\mathrm{Spec}R$, takeThe tensor product of commutative algebras has the required universal property for ring maps. Localization identifies these constructions on principal-open overlaps. Cover the base and its two inverse images by affine charts and glue the resulting affine products along those overlaps; their local universal properties give the global one.

For a counterexample to preservation of irreducibility, take $X=Y=\mathrm{Spec}\mathbb{C}$ and $S=\mathrm{Spec}\mathbb{R}$ with their usual structure morphisms. All three are integral schemes, but the Chinese remainder theorem givesThe product scheme is the disjoint union of two points, so it is not irreducible.

Work first over an affine neighbourhood $\mathrm{Spec}A$ of $y=\mathfrak{p}$, with an affine chart $\mathrm{Spec}B$ in its inverse image. The scheme-theoretic fibre on this chart has ringwhere $\kappa (\mathfrak{p})$ is the residue field. The prime ideal correspondence for localization and the correspondence for a quotient identify its points with primes $\mathfrak{q}\subset B$ containing $\mathfrak{p}B$ and disjoint from $S$. These two conditions are exactly $\mathfrak{q}\cap A=\mathfrak{p}$.

Under this bijection, each principal open $D(b\otimes 1)$ corresponds to $D(b)\cap f^{-1}\{y\}$. These are bases for the two topologies: every element of the fibre ring is represented by $b/s$, with the image of $s$ invertible. Thus the bijection is a homeomorphism. The identifications agree on overlapping charts and glue, provingThe scheme-theoretic fibre may nevertheless carry nilpotents, so this topological statement does not identify its structure sheaf with a naive restriction of ${\mathcal{O}}_X$.