Characterization of Completions of Noncatenary Local Domains and Noncatenary Local UFDs

Abstract

We find necessary and sufficient conditions for a complete local ring to be the completion of a noncatenary local (Noetherian) domain, as well as necessary and sufficient conditions for it to be the completion of a noncatenary local (Noetherian) unique factorization domain. We use our first result to demonstrate a large class of quasi-excellent domains that are not excellent, as well as a large class of catenary domains that are not universally catenary. We use our second result to find a larger class of noncatenary local UFDs than was previously known, and we show that there is no bound on how noncatenary a UFD can be.