The Weil-étale topology on schemes over finite fields

Abstract

We introduce an essentially new Grothendieck topology, the Weil-étale topology, on schemes over finite fields. The cohomology groups associated with this topology should behave better than the standard étale cohomology groups. In particular there is a very natural definition of an Euler characteristic and a plausible conjecture relating the Euler characteristic of Z to the value of the zeta-function at s = 0. This conjecture is proved in certain cases.