Singularities in mixed characteristic. The perfectoid approach (Q2274126)

In this paper, the author surveys his solution to the direct summand conjecture and the existence of big Cohen-Macaulay algebras using techniques from perfectoid spaces, as well as some recent applications to singularity theory in mixed characteristic by Ma and Schwede. He starts by some history on the direct summand conjecture (now theorem), then collects the results from perfectoid geometry needed to prove the theorem: such as the key flatness lemma (Theorem 4.1.1), the almost purity theorem and the perfectoid Abhyankar lemma (Theorem 3.2.2 and Theorem 4.2.1). The paper then sketches the construction of big Cohen-Macaulay algebra, including recent work on the weak functoriality. Finally, the paper concludes with applications of big Cohen-Macaulay algebras to the homological conjectures and singularity theory in mixed charactersitic. This survey is very nicely written and pleasant to read. Researchers who are not experts in commutative algebra but who would like to know the recent advances of perfectoid technique in commutative algebra are very encouraged to read the paper.