The structure of Selmer groups.

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to describe certain results and conjectures concerning the structure of Galois cohomology groups and Selmer groups, especially for abelian varieties. These results are analogues of a classical theorem of Iwasawa. We formulate a very general version of the Weak Leopoldt Conjecture. One consequence of this conjecture is the nonexistence of proper Lambda-submodules of finite index in a certain Galois cohomology group. Under certain hypotheses, one can prove the nonexistence of proper Lambda-submodules of finite index in Selmer groups. An example shows that some hypotheses are needed.