Good formal structures for flat meromorphic connections. III: Irregularity and turning loci (Q824248)

Summary: Given a formal at meromorphic connection over an excellent scheme over a field of characteristic zero, in a previous paper (part II, [\textit{K. S. Kedlaya}, J. Am. Math. Soc. 24, No. 1, 183--229 (2011; Zbl 1282.14037)]) we established existence of good formal structures and a good Deligne-Malgrange lattice after suitably blowing up. In this paper, we reinterpret and refine these results by introducing some related structures. We consider the \textit{turning locus}, which is the set of points at which one cannot achieve a good formal structure without blowing up. We show that when the polar divisor has normal crossings, the turning locus is of pure codimension 1 within the polar divisor, and hence of pure codimension 2 within the full space; this had been previously established by \textit{Y. André} [Invent. Math. 170, No. 1, 147--198 (2007; Zbl 1149.32017)] in the case of a smooth polar divisor. We also construct an \textit{irregularity sheaf} and its associated \(b\)-\textit{divisor}, which measure irregularity along divisors on blowups of the original space; this generalizes another result of André [loc. cit.] on the semicontinuity of irregularity in a curve fibration. One concrete consequence of these refinements is a process for resolution of turning points which is functorial with respect to regular morphisms of excellent schemes; this allows us to transfer the result from schemes to formal schemes, complex analytic varieties, and nonarchimedean analytic varieties.