Valuations and henselization

We study the extension of valuations centered in a local domain to its henseliza-tion. We prove that a valuation ν centered in a local domain R uniquely determines a minimal prime H(ν) of the henselization R h of R and an extension of ν centered in R h /H(ν), which has the same value group as ν. Our method, which assumes neither that R is noetherian nor that it is integrally closed, is to reduce the problem to the extension of the valuation to a quotient of a standard étale local R-algebra and in that situation to draw valuative consequences from the observation that the Newton-Hensel algorithm for constructing roots of polynomials produces sequences that are always pseudo-convergent in the sense of Ostrowski. We then apply this method to the study of the approximation of elements of the henselization of a valued field by elements of the field and give a characterization of the henselian property of a local domain (R, m R) in terms of the limits of certain pseudo-convergent sequences of elements of m R for a valuation centered in it. Another consequence of our work is to establish in full generality a bijective correspondence between the minimal primes of the henselization of a local domain R and the connected components of the Riemann-Zariski space of valuations centered in R