The direct factor conjecture (Q1653851)

The article gives a proof of \textit{M. Hochster}'s direct summand conjecture (see [Nagoya Math. J. 51, 25--43 (1973; Zbl 0245.13012)]). Let us recall its statement. Let $R$ be a commutative noetherian regular ring. Then it is a direct summand, as an $R$-module, of any module-finite ring extension. By results of \textit{M. Hochster} (see [J. Algebra 84, 503--553 (1983; Zbl 0562.13012)]), it is enough to prove the result when the ring $R$ is a ring of the form $W(k)[\![T_{1},\dotsc,T_{n}]\!]$, where $W(k)$ is the ring of Witt vectors of a perfect field $k$ of positive characteristic $p$. After a preliminary section, Section 2 is devoted to the proof of the result in the case of a Kummer extension of $W(k)[\![T_{1},\dots,T_{n}]\!]$, i.e. of the form $W(k)[\![T_{1}^{1/p^i},\dotsc,T_{n}^{1/p^i}]\!][\zeta_{p^i}, g^{1/p^i},1/p]^\circ$, where $\zeta_{p^i}$ is a $p^i$-th root of unity and $g$ is an element of $R$. In the proof, another algebra is introduced, obtained by considering the union of those algebras over~$i$ and completing. Such deeply ramified algebras can be studied by techniques of almost algebra and the author proves an almost flatness statement, from which the conjecture follows. In Section 3, the general case is reduced to that of Kummer extensions thanks to the Abhyankar's perfectoid lemma of the author (see [Publ. Math., Inst. Hautes Étud. Sci. 127, 1--70 (2018; Zbl 1419.14030)] in the same volume). Section 4 contains applications to the existence of balanced big Cohen-Macaulay algebras: for any noetherian local ring $B$, there exists a $B$-algebra $C$ such that $m_{B} C \ne C$ and every system of parameters of $B$ becomes a regular sequence in $C$. The paper also contains an appendix on purity.