Formal and Convergent Power Series Rings

Abstract

In this chapter we prepare the ground for the proof of the Jung-Abhyankar theorem in section 2 and the study of quasiordinary power series in section 4 of chapter V. We assume that the reader is acquainted with the notion of power series over a field; in section 1, for the convenience of the reader, we give some background, introduce convergent power series over the real and complex numbers in section 2, and prove Weierstraß division and preparation theorem in section 3. The category of formal (resp. analytic) algebras—these are homomorphic images of formal (resp. convergent) rings of power series—is treated in section 4. The last section considers, in particular, the completion of an analytic algebra; these results are needed to prove the convergent case of the Jung-Abhyankar theorem.