Maximally differential ideals (Q5906583)

Let \((R,M)\) be a complete local ring containing the field of rational numbers, \(d\) a derivation of \(R\) such that \(d(M) \not \subseteq M\) and let \(I_M (d)\) be the biggest \(d\)-ideal contained in \(M\). Zariski has shown that: (A) There exist a subring \(R_0\) and an element \(u \in M\) analytically independent over \(R_0\) such that \(R = R_0 [[u]]\). (B) The ring \(R/I_M (d)\) is isomorphic to the ring of formal power series \((R/M) [[X]]\). In particular, \(I_M (d)\) is a prime ideal of dimension one. In order to generalize these results to the case of characteristic \(p \neq 0\), instead of a derivation \(d\) one need to consider an iterative differentiation \(D : = \{d_i\}_{i \geq 0}\). In this setting, Singh has generalized part (A) of Zariski's result. -- The authors generalize part (B), showing that \(R/I_M (D)\) is also isomorphic to the ring of formal power series \((R/M) [[X]]\). The method of proof is different from Zariski's one and uses deep results of Chevalley and Nagata on complete local rings. In the second section of the paper, the authors consider a local ring \((R,M)\) with completion \((\widehat R, \widehat M)\) together with an iterative differentiation \(D : = \{d_i \}_{i \geq 0}\) and study the filtration defined by \(M_D^{(j)} : = \{x \in R \mid d_i (x) \in M\) for every \(i \leq j - 1\}\). They prove that the filtration is completely determined by the ideal \(I_{\widehat M} (D)\). Examples are given to show that the filtration is not determined by \(I_M (D)\) in general.