TITLE: Smoothness and Kähler differentials
QUESTION [7 upvotes]: Let $X$ be a complex variety. It is well-known that $X$ is smooth if and only if the sheaf of Kähler differentials $\Omega_X^1$ is locally free (Hartshorne p. 177).
Question: What happens for forms of higher degree? I.e. define $\Omega_X^p := \bigwedge^p \Omega_X^1$ (no reflexive hull or something).
For what values of $p$ and under what additional assumptions on $X$ does $\Omega_X^p$ locally free imply $X$ smooth?

REPLY [5 votes]: I think that if you do not take reflexive hulls, then all $p\leq \dim X$ should work. Since you said "variety" I assume you mean "reduced". In that case, $\mathscr F$ being locally free is equivalent to $\dim \mathscr F_x\otimes \kappa(x)$ being constant. Since tensor operations commute, it seems to me that a coherent sheaf is locally free if and only if any non-zero exterior power of it is locally free, since you can compute the above value for any exterior power and if that is constant, then the original had to be constant.
If you allow reflexive hulls, then obviously there are varieties with $\omega_X$ being a line bundle. The next question could be whether having all reflexive powers locally free would imply smoothness. Of course, this would follow from the Lipman-Zariski conjecture, so this may be known or easy.