Lech's conjecture in dimension three (Q1678159)

If \((R, \mathfrak{m}) \to (S, \mathfrak{n})\) is a local flat extension of local rings, it was conjectured by \textit{c. Lech} [Ark. Mat. 4, 63--86; (1960; Zbl 0192.13901)] that the multiplicities of the rings satisfy the inequality \(\text{e}(R) \leq \text{e}(S)\). Lech also proved the conjecture when \(\dim R \leq 2\). For higher dimensions, the conjecture is known only in some particular cases, and the paper provides a clear overview with references of these results. In this paper the author proves the following: Let \((R, \mathfrak{m}) \to (S, \mathfrak{n})\) be a local flat extension of equicharacteristic local rings. If \(d=\dim R\), then \[ \text{e}(R) \leq \max\Big\{1, \frac{d!}{2^d}\Big\} \text{e}(S).\eqno{(*)} \] In particular, if \(d=3\), then \(\text{e}(R) \leq \text{e}(S)\), establishing Lech's conjecture when \(R\) is equicharacteristic of dimension three. It is worth mentioning that a much weaker inequality \(\text{e}(R) \leq d!\text{e}(S)\) was proved by Lech for any local flat extension. Ma's proof first establishes the inequality \((*)\) for rings containing a field of characteristic \(p>0\). For equal characteristic zero the result is obtained through a careful process of reduction to characteristic \(p>0\). In characteristic \(p>0\), the conjecture is first reduced to the case when \(\dim R = \dim S=d\), \(R\) and \(S\) are both complete, \(R\) is a domain, and the residue field \(S/\mathfrak{n}\) is algebraically closed. Under these additional assumptions, it is proved that \(\text{edim} S \geq \text{edim} R\) (inequality of embedding dimensions) and if \(c=\text{edim} S - \text{edim} R\), then \[ \text{e}(R) \leq \frac{c!}{2^c}\text{e}(S). \] Moreover, if \(c \geq d\), then \[ \text{e}(R) \leq \frac{d!}{2^d+c-d}\text{e}(S) \leq \frac{d!}{2^d}\text{e}(S). \] Put together, these inequalities imply the inequality \((*)\). A crucial part of the proofs is a technical lemma on factoring flat local homomorphisms.