Valuations with preassigned proximity relations

We characterize the infinite upper triangular matrices (which we call formal proximity matrices) that can arise as proximity matrices associated with zero-dimensional valuations dominating regular noetherian local rings. In particular, for every regular noetherian local ring RR of the appropriate dimension, we give a sufficient condition for such a formal proximity matrix to be the proximity matrix associated with a real rank one valuation dominating RR. Furthermore, we prove that in the special case of rational function fields, each formal proximity matrix arises as the proximity matrix of a valuation whose value group is computable from the formal proximity matrix. We also give an example to show that this is false for more general fields. Finally in the case of characteristic zero, our constructions can be seen as a particular case of a structure theorem for zero-dimensional valuations dominating equicharacteristic regular noetherian local rings.