Extension of weakly and strongly F-regular rings by flat maps

Let (R,m) -> (S,n) be a flat local homomorphism of excellent local rings. We investigate the conditions under which the weak or strong F-regularity of R passes to S. We show that is suffices that the closed fiber S/mS be Gorenstein and either F-finite (if R and S have a common test element), or F-rational (otherwise)

The vanishing of Tor_1^R(R^+,k) implies that R is regular

Let (R,m,k) be an excellent local ring of positive prime characteristic. We show that if Tor_1^R(R^+,k) = 0 then R is regular. This improves a result of Schoutens, in which the additional hypothesis that R was an isolated singularity was required for the proof.Comment: 3 pages, to appear in Proceedings of the AM

Test ideals and flat base change problems in tight closure theory

Test ideals are an important concept in tight closure theory and their behavior via flat base change can be very difficult to understand. Our paper presents results regarding this behavior under flat maps with reasonably nice (but far from smooth) fibers. This involves analyzing, in depth, a special type of ideal of test elements, called the CS test ideal. Besides providing new results, the paper also contains extensions of a theorem by G. Lyubeznik and K. E. Smith on the completely stable test ideal and of theorems by F. Enescu and, independently, M. Hashimoto on the behavior of F-rationality under flat base change.Comment: 18 pages, to appear in Trans. Amer. Math. So

The Structure of F-Pure Rings

For a reduced F-finite ring R of characteristic p >0 and q=p^e one can write R^{1/q} = R^{a_q} \oplus M_q, where M_q has no free direct summands over R. We investigate the structure of F-finite, F-pure rings R by studying how the numbers a_q grow with respect to q. This growth is quantified by the splitting dimension and the splitting ratios of R which we study in detail. We also prove the existence of a special prime ideal P(R) of R, called the splitting prime, that has the property that R/P(R) is strongly F-regular. We show that this ideal captures significant information with regard to the F-purity of R.Comment: 15 page