Functorial desingularization of quasi-excellent schemes in characteristic zero: the nonembedded case (Q447772)

The existence of a desingularization of quasi-excellent schemes as conjectured by \textit{A. Grothendieck} [Publ. Math., Inst. Hautes Étud. Sci. 20, 101--355 (1964; Zbl 0136.15901); ibid. 24, 1--231 (1965; Zbl 0135.39701); ibid. 28, 1--255 (1966; Zbl 0144.19904); ibid. 32, 1--361 (1967; Zbl 0153.22301)] was shown in the author's work [Adv. Math. 219, No. 2, 488--522 (2008; Zbl 1146.14009)] in 2008. Compared to the analogue for varieties, that result had the following disadvantages: Centers of the necessary blowups in the resolution procedure could be non-regular, and functoriality was not satisfied for the given construction. The article under review is the first of two papers strengthening the results previously obtained: A desingularization is given by only blowing up regular centers and such that the resulting sequence of blowing ups gives an object which is functorial for regular morphisms. The case treated here is the non-embedded desingularization, whereas for the embedded one the author refers to his forthcoming paper [``Functorial desingularization over \(\mathbb{Q}\): boundaries and the embedded case'', \url{arXiv:0912.2570}]. Main result of the article is Theorem 1.2.1: For any Noetherian quasi-excellent generically reduced scheme \(X=X_0\) over \(\text{Spec} (\mathbb{Q})\) there exists a blow-up sequence \({\mathcal F} (X): X_n \dashrightarrow X_0\) such that the following conditions are satisfied: {\parindent=8mm \begin{itemize}\item[(i)] the centers of the blowups are disjoint from the preimages of the regular locus \(X_{\mathrm{reg}}\); \item[(ii)] the centers of the blowups are regular; \item[(iii)] \(X_n\) is regular; \item[(iv)] the blow-up sequence \({\mathcal F} (X)\) is functorial with respect to all regular morphisms \(X' \to X\), in the sense that \({\mathcal F} (X')\) is obtained from \({\mathcal F} (X)\times_X X'\) by omitting all empty blowups. \end{itemize}} The Construction of \({\mathcal F} \) is done starting with any algorithm \({\mathcal F}_{\mathrm{Var}}\) giving desingularizations for varieties in characteristic 0 and which is functorial for regular morphisms in the sense of (i), (iii) and (iv). Furthermore, \({\mathcal F} \) will be found to satisfy the above condition (ii) if this is the case for the algorithm \({\mathcal F}_{\mathrm{Var}}\). This algorithm is extended to pairs \((X,Z)\) of quasi-excellent schemes \(X\) and Cartier divisors \(Z\) in \(X\) containing the singular locus and isomorphic to a disjoint union of varieties, such that \({\mathcal F}_{\mathrm{Var}} (X,Z) \) desingularizes \(X\). Now the formal completion \({\mathcal X} := \hat{X}_Z\) is algebraized by some \(X'\), and \({\mathcal F}_{\mathrm{Var}} (X')\) gives rise to desingularizations on \(\mathcal X\) (and on \(X\)). The main work remaining now is to show that \({\mathcal F}_{\mathrm{Var}} (\mathcal X) = \widehat{{\mathcal F}_{\mathrm{Var}} (X')}\) is canonically defined by \(X_n\), where \(X_n\subseteq \mathcal X\) is some sufficiently large nilpotent neighborhood of the closed fibre. Algebraization is done using the classical approximation results of \textit{R. Elkik} [Ann. Sci. Éc. Norm. Supér. (4) 6, 553--603 (1973; Zbl 0327.14001)]. From the author's abstract: ``As a main application, we deduce that any reduced formal variety of characteristic zero admits a strong functorial desingularization. Also, we show that as an easy formal consequence of our main result one obtains strong functorial desingularization for many other spaces of characteristic zero including quasi-excellent stacks, formal schemes, and complex or nonarchimedean analytic spaces. Moreover, these functors easily generalize to noncompact settings by use of generalized convergent blow-up sequences with regular centers.''