Some characterizations of smoothness (Q798374)

In what follows, the word ''smooth'' is used in the sense of the book of the reviewer, ''Commutative algebra'' (1970; Zbl 0211.065 and 2nd edition 1980; Zbl 0441.13001) \([=formally\) smooth with respect to the discrete topology in the sense of EGA]. The author considers three problems: (A) When is a formal power series ring \(A[[X]]=A[[X_ 1,...,X_ n]]\) over a noetherian ring A smooth over A? (B) When is A[[X]]/\({\mathfrak a}\) smooth over A? (C) When is (A,I){\^{\ }} smooth over A? - He answers (A) in the case when A contains a field k as follows: A[[X]] is smooth over k if and only if \(char(k)=p>0\) and A is a finite module over \(A^ p\). [Later the author succeeded in giving a satisfactory answer also in the general case: cf. Nagoya Math. J. 95, 163-179 (1984; see the preceding review).] As for (B), under some conditions on the residue fields of the maximal ideals of A he proves that if \(B=A[[X]]/{\mathfrak a}\) is smooth over A then B is isomorphic to a completion (A,I){\^{\ }}. For (C) he gives some necessary and sufficient conditions.