A note on tamely ramified extensions of rings (Q798376)

Buhler gave a criterion for a class of finite free extensions of a discrete valuation ring to be tamely ramified 1-dimensional regular rings. Here the following extension of this result is proved: let A be regular local with maximal ideal m and let \(B=A[X]/f(X)\) where f(X) is a monic polynomial. Let \(n_ 1,...,n_ s\) be the maximal ideals of B, the ramification indices \(e_{n_ i/m}=length_{B_{n_ i}}(B_{n_ i}/mB_{n_ i}), {\mathfrak d}_{B/A}\) the discriminant and \(v_ m\) the usual m-adic valuation on A, then \[ v_ m({\mathfrak d}_{B/A})\geq\sum^{s}_{i=1}(e_{n_ i/m}-1).[\kappa (n_ i):\kappa (m)] \] with equality if and only if the embedding dimensions of A and B are equal and B is tamely ramified over A. Some geometrical consequences of this result are included.