Local structure theorems for smooth maps of formal schemes

Abstract

We continue our study on infinitesimal lifting properties of maps between locally noetherian formal schemes started in [L. Alonso Tarrío, A. Jeremías López, M. Pérez Rodríguez, Infinitesimal lifting and Jacobi criterion for smoothness on formal schemes, Comm. Alg. 35 (2007) 1341–1367]. In this paper, we focus on some properties which arise specifically in the formal context. In this vein, we make a detailed study of the relationship between the infinitesimal lifting properties of a morphism of formal schemes and those of the corresponding maps of usual schemes associated to the directed systems that define the corresponding formal schemes. Among our main results, we obtain the characterization of completion morphisms as pseudo-closed immersions that are flat. Also, the local structure of smooth and étale morphisms between locally noetherian formal schemes is described: the former factors locally as a completion morphism followed by a smooth adic morphism and the latter as a completion morphism followed by an étale adic morphism.