Deformation theory of Cohen-Macaulay approximation (Q2215793)

The notion of maximal Cohen-Macaulay (mCM for short) approximation can be traced back to the work of Auslander and Bridger on stable module theory in the late 1960s. At the time it was not recognized as such and a formal definition appeared in the work of Auslander and Buchweitz only in the mid-1980s. Closely related to mCM approximations is the notion of hull of finite injective dimension (fid). More precisely, an mCM approximation represents a finite module as the cokernel of a map from an fid module to an mCM module, whereas a hull represents the module as the kernel of such a map. In either case the result is a short exact sequence. Thus, with each module one can associate four modules, two from each construct. In the paper under review, the author continues his study of deformation theory of approximations and hulls. Here, deformations are understood as deformations of pairs (algebra, module). The author shows that under a certain cohomological condition (to wit, the vanishing of certain Ext modules) the maps between the suitable deformation functors are formally smooth. It is also proved that an additional assumption that a versal deformation exists implies smoothness.