Patching and thickening problems (Q1284110)

In this nicely written paper the authors develop the machinery of patching techniques in formal geometry which has been used to prove results on fundamental groups of algebraic curves. Among the results obtained we have the Abhyankar conjecture [\textit{M. Raynaud}, Invent. Math. 116, No. 1-3, 425-462 (1994; Zbl 0798.14013) and \textit{D. Harbater}, Invent. Math. 117, No. 1, 1-25 (1994; Zbl 0805.14014)], the Shafarevich conjecture [\textit{F. Pop}, Invent. Math. 120, No. 3, 555-578 (1995; Zbl 0842.14017) and \textit{D. Harbater} [in: Recent developments in the inverse Galois problem, Summer Res. Conf., Univ. Washington 1993, Contemp. Math. 186, 353-370 (1995; Zbl 0858.14013)], and realization of finite groups as Galois groups of projective curves [\textit{M. Saidi}, Compos. Math. 107, No. 3, 319-338 (1997; Zbl 0929.14016) and \textit{K. Stevenson}, J. Algebra 182, No. 3, 770-804 (1996; Zbl 0869.14011)]. One of the main goals of the paper is to develop a framework in which similar types of constructions can be facilitated. For instance, the authors show that singular curves over a field \(k\) can be thickened to curves over \(k[[t]]\) with prescribe behavior in a formal neighborhood of the singular locus. The first result concerns patching problems for projective curves \(X^*\) over the formal power series ring \(R=k[[t_1,\cdots, t_r]]\). More precisely the authors show that ``giving a coherent projective module over \(X^*\) is equivalent to giving such module compatibly on the formal neighborhood of each singular point of the closed fiber of \(X\), and on the formal thickening along the component of the singular locus \(S\) of \(X\)''. This generalizes a previous result of \textit{D. Harbater} [Am. J. Math. 115, No. 3, 487-508 (1993; Zbl 0790.14027); theorem 1]. In the second section the authors apply this result to thickening problems. Building-up on these results applied to thickening and deforming covers, the authors obtain in the fourth section information on the fundamental groups of curves. In the affine case, they show that a result of Raynaud used in the proof of the Abhyankar conjecture for the affine line, which relied on Runge pairs, can be proved with the techniques of the paper. This result as well as further ones concerning finite quotients of fundamental groups of curves with prescribed ramification are stated for large fields rather than for algebraically closed fields.