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TheoremStatement: Literature-sourcedProof: AI-adaptedPipeline-generatedprecheck passaudited 2026-09-30
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Etale morphisms are the formally etale morphisms locally of finite presentation

Statement

Assume the Axiom of Choice (The Axiom of Choice). A morphism of schemes f ⁣:X→S is 'etale (Étale morphism of schemes) if and only if it is locally of finite presentation (Locally finite presentation morphisms) and formally 'etale (Formally etale morphism).

The formal 'etaleness convention is the one fixed in the earlier definition: formally 'etale means formally smooth and formally unramified (Formally smooth morphism, Formally unramified morphism), so that every square-zero lifting problem for f admits lifts Zariski locally on the test scheme and any two such local lifts agree on the overlaps of their domains of definition; the local lifts then glue to a single lift. No flatness or finite type hypothesis is part of formal 'etaleness, and the two directions of the equivalence are proved by exhibiting the local lift from a standard smooth chart (forward) and by reducing formal smoothness to smoothness with the vanishing differentials (reverse).

Facts & Assumptions

Given: The data and hypotheses displayed in the Statement, with the conventions fixed there.

[F1]

'Etale at x means smooth at x of relative dimension 0: locally of finite presentation at x, flat at x, and geometric regularity of the fibre at x of local dimension 0; f is 'etale when this holds at every point, and then f is locally of finite presentation (Étale morphism of schemes).

[F2]

Assume AC. If f is locally of finite presentation, then f is 'etale at x if and only if f is flat at x and unramified at x in the sense of locally finite type plus formal unramifiedness at x (Étale equals flat and unramified in finite presentation).

[F3]

For an arbitrary morphism, formal unramifiedness is equivalent to the vanishing of the sheaf of relative differentials: f is formally unramified if and only if ΩX/S=0, and a morphism is unramified exactly when it is locally of finite type and ΩX/S=0 (Formal unramifiedness iff Omega vanishes, Unramified morphism, Sheaf of relative Kähler differentials).

[F4]

f is formally 'etale when it is formally smooth and formally unramified; equivalently every square-zero lifting problem has a lift Zariski locally on the test scheme and any two local lifts agree on overlaps, so that they glue to a unique global lift (Formally etale morphism, Formally smooth morphism, Formally unramified morphism).

[F5]

Assume AC. A morphism is smooth if and only if it is locally of finite presentation and formally smooth (Smooth morphisms are exactly the formally smooth locally finitely presented morphisms).

[F6]

A morphism is smooth at x when it is locally of finite presentation at x, flat at x and the fibre is geometrically regular at x; in particular a smooth morphism is locally of finite presentation and flat at every point (Smooth morphism of schemes).

[F7]

For a ring map A→B, composition with the universal derivation is a bijection Hom⁡B(ΩB/A,M)→Der⁡A(B,M) for every B-module M, so ΩB/A=0 exactly when every A-derivation of B into every B-module vanishes; on an affine chart Spec⁡B over Spec⁡A the sheaf ΩX/S is the sheaf attached to ΩB/A (Derivations are maps out of Ω, Universal Kähler differential module, Affine charts recover the algebraic module of differentials).

[F8]

A square-zero thickening is a closed immersion i ⁣:T0↪T with ideal sheaf I=ker⁡(OT→i∗OT0) satisfying I2=0 (Closed immersions of schemes, Formally unramified morphism); on affine charts it is an ideal I⊆C with I2=0, and two A-algebra maps B→C that agree modulo I are exactly the affine form of two lifts agreeing on T0. Agreement of two morphisms is a condition local on the test scheme, and morphisms into a scheme agree as soon as they agree on an open cover of the test scheme.

[F9]

The Axiom of Choice states that every family of nonempty sets has a choice function; it is assumed in the smooth--formally smooth equivalence and in the 'etale--flat--unramified equivalence used below (The Axiom of Choice).

Proof

technique · direct
1.1F1F5F6

Forward direction, formal smoothness. Assume f 'etale. Then f is locally of finite presentation and smooth at every point by [F1], hence smooth [F6]; [F5] (AC) then shows that f is formally smooth.

1.2F1F2F3F7

Forward direction, vanishing differentials. Assume f 'etale. At every point x the morphism f is locally of finite presentation, flat and unramified, the last by [F2] (AC) in the forward direction; by [F3] this means ΩX/S,x=0. As x ranges over X the sheaf of relative differentials vanishes: ΩX/S=0, and on every affine chart Spec⁡B over Spec⁡A the module ΩB/A is zero by [F7].

1.3F2F3F4F5F6

Reverse direction. Assume now that f is locally of finite presentation and formally 'etale (AC). By [F4] f is formally smooth and formally unramified; [F5] applied to the formally smooth morphism turns local finite presentation into smoothness, so f is smooth, and consequently locally of finite presentation and flat at every point by [F6]. By [F3] the formal unramifiedness gives ΩX/S=0, hence f is unramified at every point (it is locally of finite presentation, in particular locally of finite type); [F2] then gives that f is 'etale at every point.

2.1F7F8step 1.2

Forward direction, uniqueness of lifts. Let i ⁣:T0↪T be a square-zero thickening, let u,v ⁣:T→X be S-morphisms with u∣T0=v∣T0; we show u=v. Agreement is local on T [F8], so fix t∈T and put y:=u(t)=v(t) (equality holds because a square-zero thickening has the same underlying space as T: the underlying map of a closed immersion is injective with image the closed set where the stalk of I is not the whole local ring, and a square-zero ideal has no stalk equal to the whole local ring, for that would force the local ring 0). Choose affine opens Spec⁡A=V⊆S around f(y) and Spec⁡B=U⊆X around y with f(U)⊆V; then W:=u−1(U)∩v−1(U) is an open neighbourhood of t and we may replace T by an affine open Spec⁡C⊆W containing t, so that u,v correspond to A-algebra maps φ,ψ ⁣:B→C agreeing modulo the square-zero ideal I⊆C of T0∩T. Define D:=φ−ψ ⁣:B→I. For b,b′∈B one computes D(bb′)=φ(b)φ(b′)−ψ(b)ψ(b′)=φ(b)D(b′)+D(b)ψ(b′), and since φ(b)−ψ(b)∈I and I2=0 the elements φ(b) and ψ(b) act in the same way on I, so D is an A-derivation of B into the C-module I. By [F7] and the vanishing ΩB/A=0 of step 1.2, D=0, so φ=ψ and u=v on Spec⁡C; as t was arbitrary, u=v on T.

3.1F1F4step 1.1step 2.1

Forward direction, conclusion. By steps 1.1 and 2.1 the 'etale morphism f is formally smooth (local existence of lifts) and formally unramified (uniqueness of lifts agreeing on a square-zero thickening), hence formally 'etale by [F4]; it is locally of finite presentation by [F1]. This proves the 'only if' direction.

4.1

Summary. The Axiom of Choice [F9] is assumed in the Statement and is used exactly through [F5] in steps 1.1 and 1.3 and through [F2] in steps 1.2 and 1.3; steps 2.1 and 3.1 use only the universal property of differentials and the definition of formal 'etaleness, and add no choice. [F2, F5, F9, step 1.1, step 1.2, step 1.3] □

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