Intersection multiplicity of Serre in the unramified case (Q2257272)

For a regular local ring \((A, \mathfrak{m})\) and finitely generated \(A\)-modules \(M\) and \(N\) such that the length \(\ell(M \otimes_A N)\) is finite, Serre defined the intersection multiplicity of \(M\) and \(N\) to be \[ \chi^A(M,N)=\sum_{i=1}^{\text{dim}A}(-1)^i \ell(\text{Tor}_i^A(M,N)). \] One of Serre's multiplicity conjectures, the so-called positivity conjecture, says that \(\chi^A(M,N) > 0\) if \(\text{dim}M + \text{dim}N = \text{dim}A\). It is known that \(\chi^A(M,N)\) is always non-negative (as proved by \textit{J.-P. Serre} [Algèbre locale. Multiplicités. Cours au College de France, 1957 - 1958. Redige par Pierre Gabriel. 3e ed. Lecture Notes in Mathematics. 11. Berlin-Heidelberg-York: Springer-Verlag (1975; Zbl 0296.13018)] and Gabber [unpublished work]) and \(\chi^A(M,N)=0\) if \(\text{dim}M + \text{dim}N < \text{dim}A\) (as proved by \textit{H. Gillet} and \textit{C. Soulé} [Invent. Math. 90, 243--277 (1987; Zbl 0632.14009)] and \textit{P. Roberts} [Bull. Am. Math. Soc., New Ser. 13, 127--130 (1985; Zbl 0585.13004)]). Serre proved that the positivity conjecture holds whenever \(A\) is either equicharacteristic or of mixed characteristic and unramified. Moreover, in the equicharacteristic case, Serre showed that if \(\text{dim}M + \text{dim}N = \text{dim}A\), then \(\chi^A(M,N) \geq \text{e}(M) \text{e}(N)\), where \(\text{e}(M)\) denotes the Hilbert-Samuel multiplicity of \(M\) with respect to the maximal ideal \(\mathfrak{m}\). The first goal of this paper is to extend this result to the unramified case. It is proved that the inequality \(\chi^A(M,N) \geq \text{e}(M) \text{e}(N)\) also holds if \((A,\mathfrak{m})\) is a regular local ring containing a discrete valuation ring \((R, \pi R)\) with perfect residue field such that \(\pi \in \mathfrak{m} \setminus \mathfrak{m}^2\). The author then studies the situations when equality is achieved. It is conjectured that if \(\chi^A(M,N) = \text{e}(M) \text{e}(N)\), then \(\text{dim} (\text{gr} M \otimes_{\text{gr} A } \text{gr} N)=0\). (The converse of this statement follows from work of \textit{B. R. Tennison} [Math. Proc. Camb. Philos. Soc. 85, 33--42 (1979; Zbl 0399.14003)]). In the paper, the conjecture is proved when \(A\) is equicharacteristic. Several particular cases are also proved in the case when \((A,\mathfrak{m})\) is a regular local ring containing a discrete valuation ring \((R, \pi R)\) with perfect residue field such that \(\pi \in \mathfrak{m} \setminus \mathfrak{m}^2\) and \(M,N\) are flat as \(R\)-modules.