Faithfully Flat Descent

Faithfully flat descent
Wouter Zomervrucht, November 6, 2013
1. Faithfully flat morphisms

A ring homomorphism A → B is faithfully flat if for every sequence N 0 → N → N 00 of A-
modules we have that N 0 → N → N 00 is exact if and only if N 0 ⊗ A B → N ⊗ A B → N 00 ⊗ A B is
exact.
Proposition (Stacks 00HQ). Let A → B be a flat ring homomorphism. Then A → B is faithfully flat
if and only if Spec B → Spec A is surjective.
A morphism of schemes is called faithfully flat if it is flat and surjective.
2. Descent
‘Descent’ is (informally and very generally) the act of producing objects on some scheme S by
doing so on several schemes Ui over S in a compatable way, and then proving that there exists
a corresponding object on S. The intuition should come from Zariski descent, where the Ui are
simply open subschemes of S, and descent is called gluing. Examples:
• A morphism f : S → X can be given by morphisms f i : Ui → X, where i∈ I Ui is an open
S
covering of S, if the f i ’s agree on intersections;

• A quasi-coherent sheaf F on S can be given by quasi-coherent sheaves Fi on Ui that agree
on the intersections;
• A scheme X over S can be given by compatable schemes Xi over Ui .
What if we generalize open coverings to ‘coverings’ of another kind? The questions still make
sense (replace intersections by fiber products).
Definition. Let S be a scheme and {hi : Ui → S}i∈ I a family of morphisms to S.
• We
S
call { hi : Ui → S}i∈ I a Zariski covering of S if each hi is an open immersion and
i ∈ I im hi = S.
• We call {hi : Ui → S}i∈ I an étale covering of S is each hi is étale and i∈ I im hi = S.
S
• We call {hi : Ui → S}i∈ I an fppf covering (‘fidèlement

S
plat et de présentation finie’) if each hi
is flat and locally of finite presentation and i∈ I im hi = S.
• We call {hi : Ui → S}i∈ I an fpqc covering (‘fidèlement plat et quasi-compact’) if each hi
is flat and every quasi-compact open in S is the image of a quasi-compact open under
h : äi∈ I Ui → S.
Lemma (Stacks 0216, 021N, 022C). These classes of coverings are increasingly general.
Observe that {Ui → S}i∈ I is an étale/fppf/fpqc covering if and only if {äi∈ I Ui → S} is an

étale/fppf/fpqc covering. More examples of fpqc coverings include: U → S faithfully flat and
quasi-compact; U → S faithfully flat and universally open.
3. Descent of quasi-coherent sheaves

For a covering {Ui → S}i∈ I write Uij = Ui ×S Uj and Uijk = Ui ×S Uj ×S Uk .
1
Definition. Let S a scheme and U = {Ui → S}i∈ I an fpqc covering. A descent datum of quasi-
coherent sheaves relative to U consists of a quasi-coherent sheaf Fi ∈ QCoh Ui for all i ∈ I, and
an isomorphism ϕij : Fi |Uij → F j |Uij for all i, j ∈ I, such that ϕik |Uijk = ϕ jk |Uijk ◦ ϕij |Uijk (the
cocycle condition) holds for all i, j, k ∈ I.
Definition. A descent datum (Fi , ϕij ) descends, or is effective, if there exists a quasi-coherent
sheaf F ∈ QCoh S and isomorphisms αi : F |Ui → Fi such that ϕij ◦ αi |Uij = α j |Uij .
The following theorem is due to Grothendieck, and may be stated as: ‘QCoh is an fpqc stack’.
Theorem (Stacks 023T). Every fpqc descent datum of quasi-coherent sheaves is effective.
The main ingredients in the proof are:

• (Stacks 022H) It suffices to prove the theorem for Zariski coverings and coverings given by
a faithfully flat map Spec B → Spec A.
• (Stacks 02JY) If A → B is faithfully flat, then any subset of Spec A is open if and only if its
full preimage in Spec B is open.
• (Stacks 023M) If A → B is faithfully flat, then it is the equalizer of the maps B → B ⊗ A B
given by b 7→ 1 ⊗ b and b 7→ b ⊗ 1, respectively.
The same is true for coherent sheaves, but not for arbitrary modules.
4. Descent of morphisms
Again due to Grothendieck: ‘representable functors are fpqc sheaves’.
Theorem (Stacks 023Q). Let {U → S} be an fpqc covering and X a scheme over S. Suppose a
morphism f : U → X ×S U is such that its two pullbacks to U ×S U → X ×S U ×S U coincide. Then
there exists a unique morphism g : S → X with pullback f .
Many properties of f ‘descend’ to g: injective, surjective, open, closed, separated, (locally) of

finite type, (locally) of finite presentation, flat, smooth, étale, . . .. Not: (quasi-)projective.
5. Descent of schemes
Just a warning (Stacks 08KF): étale/fppf/fpqc descent of schemes is not always effective!

Faithfully Flat Descent

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Faithfully flat descent

Wouter Zomervrucht, November 6, 2013

1. Faithfully flat morphisms

A morphism of schemes is called faithfully flat if it is flat and surjective.

covering of S, if the f i ’s agree on intersections;

• We call {hi : Ui → S}i∈ I an fppf covering (‘fidèlement

Observe that {Ui → S}i∈ I is an étale/fppf/fpqc covering if and only if {äi∈ I Ui → S} is an

3. Descent of quasi-coherent sheaves

The main ingredients in the proof are:

Many properties of f ‘descend’ to g: injective, surjective, open, closed, separated, (locally) of

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