Friday, 11 February 2011

ag.algebraic geometry - Intuition/Heuristic behind I/I^2 definition of Kähler differentials

Hello,



this one has always been mysterious to me. The Kähler differentials OmegaA/k are definined, by the universal property
Derk(A,M)=AMod(OmegaA/k,M)


so for M=A we get that OmegaA/k is the cotangent space of spec(A).
(or a relative version of it if k is no field).



There are two constructions of Kähler Differentials I know.
The first one is OmegaA/k=langledf:textrelationssatisfiedbyanyderivationrangle


I think I sort of understand this one, it says that the differential of a function just contains enough information to extract the derivation of the function out of it.
And this is what a section into cotangent space should be. Something that contains just enough information to pair it with a vector-field into a function.
The other construction is
OmegaA/k=I/I2

Where I is the Ideal of functions vanishing on the diagonal in spec(A)timesspec(k)spec(A).



More geometrically it says
sections into cotangent space=functions vanishing on the diagonal mod higher order.
But still I don't think I understand this equality on an intuitive level. Can someone explain the heuristic behind this equality? Or maybe explain OmegaA/k=I/I2 from another intuitive viewpoint?

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