Ascent of module structures, vanishing of Ext, and extended modules (Q841537)

Let \(\phi:(R,m)\to(S,n)\) be a morphism of noetherian local rings such that \(R/m\simeq S/mS.\) The paper deals with ascent and descent properties of modules between \(R\) and \(S.\) First it is shown that if \(M\) is a finitely generated \(R\)-module, then if \(M\) has an \(S\)-module structure which is compatible with the \(R\)-module structure, then the natural map \(M\to S\otimes_R M\) is an isomorphism and moreover if \(\phi\) is flat, \(M\) has a compatible \(S\)-structure if and only if \(S\otimes_R M\) is finitely generated as an \(R\)-module. Then it is shown that if \(\phi\) is flat, \(M\) has a compatible \(S\)-module structure if and only if \(Ext^i_R(S,M)\) is a finitely generated \(R\)-module, for all \(i=1,\dots,\dim(M).\) Finally it is shown that if \(S\) is the henselization of \(R\), every finitely generated \(S\)-module is a direct summand of a finitely generated extended module. An example shows that this last result fails if \(S\) is the \(m\)-adic completion of \(R\).