Ramified Approximation and Semistable Reduction

Let $K$ be a complete discretely valued field. An extension $L/K$ is "weakly totally ramified" if the residue extension is purely inseparable. We sharpen a result of Ax by showing that any Galois-invariant disk in the algebraic closure of $K$ contains an element that generates a separable weakly totally ramified extension. As an application, we prove that elliptic curves and dynamical systems on $\mathbb{P}^1$ achieve semistable reduction over a separable weakly totally ramified extension of the base field. We also obtain several arithmetic consequences for torsion points on elliptic curves and preperiodic points for dynamical systems.