Galois ring extensions and localized modular rings of invariants of p-groups

We apply recent results on Galois-ring extensions and trace surjective algebras to analyze dehomogenized modular invariant rings of finite p-groups, as well as related localizations. We describe criteria for the dehomogenized invariant ring to be polynomial or at least regular and we show that for regular affine algebras with possibly non-linear action by a p-group, the singular locus of the invariant ring is contained in the variety of the transfer ideal. If V is the regular module of an arbitrary finite p-group, or V is any faithful representation of a cyclic p-group, we show that there is a suitable invariant linear form, inverting which renders the ring of invariants into a "localized polynomial ring" with dehomogenization being a polynomial ring. This is in surprising contrast to the fact that for a faithful representation of a cyclic group of order larger than p, the ring of invariants itself cannot be a polynomial ring by a result of Serre. Our results here generalize observations made by Richman [R] and by Campbell and Chuai [CCH].