Formal and rigid geometry: an intuitive introduction and some applications (Q1002480)

The article provides a very nice introduction to formal and rigid geometry. It contains enlightening remarks about the way one should think of the objects as well as numerous examples and references. At the end, the author gives some examples of applications of the theory. Let's mention that, due to the introductory nature of the paper, no proof is given. The author begins with formal schemes. He gives the definitions and speaks about coherent modules, completion of schemes (including a few words about the proper case and Grothendieck's Existence Theorem) and formal blow-ups. Then he turns to rigid geometry, giving all the definitions and telling how to get a rigid variety by analytifying a scheme. Next, he explains how Raynaud's theory enables to define the generic fibre of a formal scheme as a rigid space. Finally, he says a few words about Berkovich spaces, which are close to rigid spaces but carry a true topology. Concerning the applications, the author first discusses arc spaces and shows that they naturally appear as generic fibers of formal schemes. Next, he explains how to define a Milnor fiber of a fibration over the line over any field (algebraically closed of characteristic 0) as a rigid space. Other applications (lifting problems, nearby cycles for formal schemes, semi-stable reduction for curves, Abhyankar's conjecture) are also mentionned, though more briefly.