Etale Cohomology Research Articles

Etale and crystalline companions, I

Let $X$ be a smooth scheme over a finite field of characteristic $p$. Consider the coefficient objects of locally constant rank on $X$ in $\ell$-adic Weil cohomology: these are lisse Weil sheaves in \'etale cohomology when $\ell \neq p$, and overconvergent $F$-isocrystals in rigid cohomology when $\ell=p$. Using the Langlands correspondence for global function fields in both the \'etale and crystalline settings (work of Lafforgue and Abe, respectively), one sees that on a curve, any coefficient object in one category has "companions" in the other categories with matching characteristic polynomials of Frobenius at closed points. A similar statement is expected for general $X$; building on work of Deligne, Drinfeld showed that any \'etale coefficient object has \'etale companions. We adapt Drinfeld's method to show that any crystalline coefficient object has \'etale companions; this has been shown independently by Abe--Esnault. We also prove some auxiliary results relevant for the construction of crystalline companions of \'etale coefficient objects; this subject will be pursued in a subsequent paper.

Degree 2 cohomological invariants of linear algebraic groups

The paper deals with the cohomological invariants of smooth and connected linear algebraic groups over an arbitrary field. More precisely, we study degree $2$ invariants with coefficients $\mathbb{Q}/\mathbb{Z}(1)$, that is invariants taking values in the Brauer group. Our main tool is the \'etale cohomology of sheaves on simplicial schemes. We get a description of these invariants for \emph{every} smooth and connected linear groups, in particular for non reductive groups over an imperfect field.

On some finiteness results in real étale cohomology

We show that for quasi-compact quasi-separated schemes of finite dimension, the constructibility condition in real \'etale cohomology agrees with a notion of constructibility arising naturally from topology. As application we prove that the derived direct image functor preserves constructibility under some assumptions, and compute the Grothendieck group of the constructible rational stable motivic homotopy category for reasonable schemes. We prove the generic base change property for constructible real \'etale sheaves, and deduce the same property for rational motivic spectra and $b$-sheaves.

Polya enumeration theorems in algebraic geometry

We generalize a formula due to Macdonald that relates the singular Betti numbers of $X^{n}/G$ to those of $X$, where $X$ is a compact manifold and $G$ is any subgroup of the symmetric group $S_{n}$ acting on $X^{n}$ by permuting coordinates. Our result is completely axiomatic: in a general setting, given an endomorphism on the cohomology $H^{\bullet}(X)$, it explains how we can explicitly relate the Lefschetz series of the induced endomorphism on $H^{\bullet}(X^{n})^{G}$ to that of the given endomorphism on $H^{\bullet}(X)$ in the presence of the Kunneth formula with respect to a cup product. For example, when $X$ is a compact manifold, we take the Lefschetz series given by the singular cohomology with rational coefficients. On the other hand, when $X$ is a projective variety over a finite field $\mathbb{F}_{q}$, we use the $l$-adic etale cohomology with a suitable choice of prime number $l$. We also explain how our formula generalizes the Polya enumeration theorem, a classical theorem in combinatorics that counts colorings of a graph up to given symmetries, where $X$ is taken to be a finite set of colors. When $X$ is a smooth projective variety over $\mathbb{C}$, our formula also generalizes a result of Cheah that relates the Hodge numbers of $X^{n}/G$ to those of $X$. We will also see that our result generalizes the following facts: 1. the generating function of the Poincare polynomials of symmetric powers of a compact manifold $X$ is rational; 2. the generating function of the Hodge-Deligne polynomials of symmetric powers of a smooth projective variety $X$ over $\mathbb{C}$ is rational; 3. the zeta series of a projective variety $X$ over $\mathbb{F}_{q}$ is rational. We also prove analogous rationality results when we replace $S_{n}$ with $A_{n}$, alternating groups.

Moduli of local shtukas and Harris’s conjecture

We prove, under a certain assumption of “Hodge–Newton reducibility”, a strong form of a conjecture of Harris on the cohomology of moduli spaces of mixed-characteristic local shtukas for GLn. Our strategy is roughly based on a previous strategy developed by Mantovan in the setting of p-divisible groups, but the arguments are completely different. In particular, we reinterpret and generalize the Hodge–Newton filtration of a p-divisible group in terms of modified vector bundles on the Fargues–Fontaine curve. We also compute the dualizing complex and compactly supported etale cohomology of any positive Banach–Colmez space over any base; this should be of independent interest.

Configurations of noncollinear points in the projective plane

We consider the space $F_n$ of configurations of $n$ points in $P^2$ satisfying the condition that no three of the points lie on a line. For $n = 4, 5, 6$, we compute $H^*(F_n; \mathbb{Q})$ as an $S_n$-representation. The cases $n = 5, 6$ are computed via the Grothendieck--Lefschetz trace formula in \'etale cohomology and certain "twisted" point counts for analogous spaces over $\mathbb{F}_q$.

The arc-topology

We study a Grothendieck topology on schemes which we call the arc-topology. This topology is a refinement of the v-topology (the pro-version of Voevodsky’s h-topology), where covers are tested via rank ≤1 valuation rings. Functors which are arc-sheaves are forced to satisfy a variety of gluing conditions such as excision in the sense of algebraic K-theory. We show that etale cohomology is an arc-sheaf, and we deduce various pullback squares in etale cohomology. Using arc-descent, we re-prove the Gabber–Huber affine analogue of proper base change (in a large class of examples), as well as the Fujiwara–Gabber base change theorem on the etale cohomology of the complement of a Henselian pair. As a final application, we prove a rigid analytic version of the Artin–Grothendieck vanishing theorem, extending results of Hansen.

Integral p-adic étale cohomology of Drinfeld symmetric spaces

We compute the integral $p$-adic \'etale cohomology of Drinfeld symmetric spaces of any dimension. This refines the computation of the rational $p$-adic \'etale cohomology from Colmez-Dospinescu-Nizio{\l}. The main tools are: the computation of the integral de Rham cohomology from CDN and the integral $p$-adic comparison theorems of Bhatt-Morrow-Scholze and \v{C}esnavi\v{c}ius-Koshikawa which replace the quasi-integral comparison theorem of Tsuji used in CDN.

The Brauer group of the moduli stack of elliptic curves

We compute the Brauer group of the moduli stack of elliptic curves over the integers, localizations of the integers, finite fields of odd characteristic, and algebraically closed fields of characteristic not $2$. The methods involved include the use of the parameter space of Legendre curves and the moduli stack of curves with full (naive) level $2$ structure, the study of the descent spectral sequence in \'etale cohomology and the Leray spectral sequence in fppf cohomology, the computation of the group cohomology of $S_3$ in a certain integral representation, the classification of cubic Galois extensions of the field of rational numbers, the computation of Hilbert symbols in the ramified case for the primes $2$ and $3$, and finding $p$-adic elliptic curves with specified properties.

The tame site of a scheme

\'Etale cohomology with non-invertible coefficients has some unpleasant properties, e.g., it is not A^1-homotopy invariant and for constructible coefficients the expected finiteness properties do not hold. In this paper we introduce the `tame site' which is slightly coarser than the \'etale site. Tame cohomology coincides with \'etale cohomology for invertible coefficients but is better behaved in the general case. The fundamental group of the tame site is the (curve-)tame fundamental group of Wiesend and Kerz/Schmidt. The higher tame homotopy groups hopefully have a better behaviour than the higher \'etale homotopy groups, which vanish for affine schemes in positive characteristic by a result of Achinger.

$$\ell $$-independence of the trace of local monodromy in a relative case (with an appendix by Qing Lu and Weizhe Zheng)

For a family of varieties, we prove that the alternating sum of the traces of “local” monodromy acting on the $$\ell $$ -adic etale cohomology groups of the generic fiber is an integer that is independent of $$\ell $$ . In the course of the proof, we also establish a result on fixed points.

Orders that are étale-locally isomorphic

Let $R$ be a semilocal Dedekind domain with fraction field $F$. We show that two hereditary $R$-orders in central simple $F$-algebras which become isomorphic after tensoring with $F$ and with some faithfully flat etale $R$-algebra are isomorphic. On the other hand, this fails for hereditary orders with involution. The latter stands in contrast to a result of the first two authors, who proved this statement for hermitian forms over hereditary $R$-orders with involution. The results can be restated by means of etale cohomology and can be seen as variations of the Grothendieck--Serre conjecture on principal homogeneous bundles of reductive group schemes. Connections with Bruhat--Tits theory are also discussed.

Moduli spaces of sheaves on K3 surfaces and Galois representations

We consider two K3 surfaces defined over an arbitrary field, together with a smooth proper moduli space of stable sheaves on each. When the moduli spaces have the same dimension, we prove that if the etale cohomology groups (with Ql coefficients) of the two surfaces are isomorphic as Galois representations, then the same is true of the two moduli spaces. In particular, if the field of definition is finite and the K3 surfaces have equal zeta functions, then so do the moduli spaces, even when the moduli spaces are not birational.

A note on Gersten’s conjecture for étale cohomology over two-dimensional henselian regular local rings

We show the Gersten's conjecture for \'etale cohomology over two dimensional henselian regular local rings without assuming equi-characteristic. As application, we obtain the local-global principle for Galois cohomology over mixed characteristic two-dimensional henselian local rings.

Artin–Mazur–Milne duality for fppf cohomology

We provide a complete proof of a duality theorem for the fppf cohomology of either a curve over a finite field or a ring of integers of a number field, which extends the classical Artin-Verdier Theorem in \'etale cohomology. We also prove some finiteness and vanishing statements.

The Mumford�Tate conjecture for products of abelian varieties

Let $X$ be a smooth projective variety over a finitely generated field $K$ of characteristic~$0$ and fix an embedding $K \subset \mathbb{C}$. The Mumford--Tate conjecture is a precise way of saying that certain extra structure on the $\ell$-adic \'etale cohomology groups of~$X$ (namely, a Galois representation) and certain extra structure on the singular cohomology groups of~$X$ (namely, a Hodge structure) convey the same information. The main result of this paper says that if $A_1$ and~$A_2$ are abelian varieties (or abelian motives) over~$K$, and the Mumford--Tate conjecture holds for both~$A_1$ and~$A_2$, then it holds for $A_1 \times A_2$. These results do not depend on the embedding $K \subset \CC$.

Cohomology of p-adic Stein spaces

We compute p-adic etale and pro-etale cohomologies of Drinfeld half-spaces. In the pro-etale case, the main input is a comparison theorem for p-adic Stein spaces; the cohomology groups involved here are much bigger than in the case of etale cohomology of algebraic varieties or proper analytic spaces considered in all previous works. In the etale case, the classical p-adic comparison theorems allow us to pass to a computation of integral differential forms cohomologies which can be done because the standard formal models of Drinfeld half-spaces are pro-ordinary and their differential forms are acyclic.

Crystalline comparison isomorphisms in p-adic Hodge theory :the absolutely unramified case

We construct the crystalline comparison isomorphisms for proper smooth formal schemes over an absolutely unramified base. Such isomorphisms hold for \'etale cohomology with nontrivial coefficients, as well as in the relative setting, i.e. for proper smooth morphisms of smooth formal schemes. The proof is formulated in terms of the pro-\'etale topos introduced by Scholze, and uses his primitive comparison theorem for the structure sheaf on the pro-\'etale site. Moreover, we need to prove the Poincar\'e lemma for crystalline period sheaves, for which we adapt the idea of Andreatta and Iovita. Another ingredient for the proof is the geometric acyclicity of crystalline period sheaves, whose computation is due to Andreatta and Brinon.

Stratification and averaging for exponential sums: bilinear forms with generalized Kloosterman sums

We prove non-trivial bounds for bilinear forms with hyper-Kloosterman sums with characters modulo a prime $q$ which, for both variables of length $M$, are non-trivial as soon as $M\geq q^{3/8+\delta}$ for any $\delta>0$. This range, which matches Burgess's range, is identical with the best results previously known only for simpler exponentials of monomials. The proof combines refinements of the analytic tools from our previous paper and new geometric methods. The key geometric idea is a comparison statement that shows that even when the "sum-product" sheaves that appear in the analysis fail to be irreducible, their decomposition reflects that of the "input" sheaves, except for parameters in a high-codimension subset. This property is proved by a subtle interplay between \'etale cohomology in its algebraic and diophantine incarnations. We prove a first application concerning the first moment of a family of $L$-functions of degree $3$.

$\overline{M}_{1,n}$ is usually not uniruled in characteristic $p$

Using etale cohomology, we define a birational invariant for varieties in characteristic $p$ that serves as an obstruction to uniruledness - a variant on an obstruction to unirationality due to Ekedahl. We apply this to $\overline{M}_{1,n}$ and show that $\overline{M}_{1,n}$ is not uniruled in characteristic $p$ as long as $n \geq p \geq 11$. To do this, we use Deligne's description of the etale cohomology of $\overline{M}_{1,n}$ and apply the theory of congruences between modular forms.