In this article, we establish the Grothendieck–Serre conjecture over valuation rings: for a reductive group scheme $G$ over a valuation ring $V$ with fraction field $K$, a $G$-torsor over $V$ is trivial if it is trivial over $K$. This result is predicted by the original Grothendieck–Serre conjecture and the resolution of singularities. The novelty of our proof lies in overcoming subtleties brought by general nondiscrete valuation rings. By using flasque resolutions and inducting with local cohomology, we prove a non-Noetherian counterpart of Colliot-Thélène–Sansuc's case of tori. Then, taking advantage of techniques in algebraization, we obtain the passage to the Henselian rank-one case. Finally, we induct on Levi subgroups and use the integrality of rational points of anisotropic groups to reduce to the semisimple anisotropic case, in which we appeal to properties of parahoric subgroups in Bruhat–Tits theory to conclude. In the last section, by using extension properties of reflexive sheaves on formal power series over valuation rings and patching of torsors, we prove a variant of Nisnevich's purity conjecture.

The goal of this note is to show that in the case of ‘transversal intersections’ the ‘true local terms’ appearing in the Lefschetz trace formula are equal to the ‘naive local terms’. To prove the result, we extend the strategy used in our previous work, where the case of contracting correspondences is treated. Our new ingredients are the observation of Verdier that specialization of an étale sheaf to the normal cone is monodromic and the assertion that local terms are ‘constant in families’. As an application, we get a generalization of the Deligne–Lusztig trace formula.

We prove some $\ell $-independence results on local constancy of étale cohomology of rigid analytic varieties. As a result, we show that a closed subscheme of a proper scheme over an algebraically closed complete non-archimedean field has a small open neighbourhood in the analytic topology such that, for every prime number $\ell $ different from the residue characteristic, the closed subscheme and the open neighbourhood have the same étale cohomology with ${\mathbb Z}/\ell {\mathbb Z}$-coefficients. The existence of such an open neighbourhood for each $\ell $ was proved by Huber. A key ingredient in the proof is a uniform refinement of a theorem of Orgogozo on the compatibility of the nearby cycles over general bases with base change.

We prove a generic smoothness result in rigid analytic geometry over a characteristic zero non-archimedean field. The proof relies on a novel notion of generic points in rigid analytic geometry which are well adapted to ‘spreading out’ arguments, in analogy with the use of generic points in scheme theory. As an application, we develop a six-functor formalism for Zariski-constructible étale sheaves on characteristic zero rigid spaces. Among other things, this implies that characteristic zero rigid spaces support a well-behaved theory of perverse sheaves.

We prove a product formula for the determinant of the cohomology of an étale sheaf with $\ell $ -adic coefficients over an arbitrary proper scheme over a perfect field of positive characteristic p distinct from $\ell $ . The local contributions are constructed by iterating vanishing cycle functors as well as certain exact additive functors that can be considered as linearised versions of Artin conductors and local $\varepsilon $ -factors. We provide several applications of our higher dimensional product formula, such as twist formulas for global $\varepsilon $ -factors.

We prove a rigid analytic analogue of the Artin–Grothendieck vanishing theorem. Precisely, we prove (under mild hypotheses) that the geometric étale cohomology of any Zariski-constructible sheaf on any affinoid rigid space $X$ vanishes in all degrees above the dimension of $X$. Along the way, we show that branched covers of normal rigid spaces can often be extended across closed analytic subsets, in analogy with a classical result for complex analytic spaces. We also prove some new comparison theorems relating the étale cohomology of schemes and rigid analytic varieties, and give some applications of them. In particular, we prove a structure theorem for Zariski-constructible sheaves on characteristic-zero affinoid spaces.

Soient $S$ un schéma nœthérien et $f:X\rightarrow S$ un morphisme propre. D’après SGA 4 XIV, pour tout faisceau constructible $\mathscr{F}$ de $\mathbb{Z}/n\mathbb{Z}$-modules sur $X$, les faisceaux de $\mathbb{Z}/n\mathbb{Z}$-modules $\mathtt{R}^{i}f_{\star }\mathscr{F}$, obtenus par image directe (pour la topologie étale), sont également constructibles : il existe une stratification $\mathfrak{S}$ de $S$ telle que ces faisceaux soient localement constants constructibles sur les strates. À la suite de travaux de N. Katz et G. Laumon, ou L. Illusie, dans le cas particulier où $S$ est génériquement de caractéristique nulle ou bien les faisceaux $\mathscr{F}$ sont constants (de torsion inversible sur $S$), on étudie ici la dépendance de $\mathfrak{S}$ en $\mathscr{F}$. On montre qu’une condition naturelle de constructibilité et modération « uniforme » satisfaite par les faisceaux constants, introduite par O. Gabber, est stable par les foncteurs $\mathtt{R}^{i}f_{\star }$. Si $f$ n’est pas supposé propre, ce résultat subsiste sous réserve de modération à l’infini, relativement à $S$. On démontre aussi l’existence de bornes uniformes sur les nombres de Betti, qui s’appliquent notamment pour les fibres des faisceaux $\mathtt{R}^{i}f_{\star }\mathbb{F}_{\ell }$, où $\ell$ parcourt les nombres premiers inversibles sur $S$.

Let $C$ be a smooth, separated and geometrically connected curve over a finitely generated field $k$ of characteristic $p\geqslant 0$ , $\unicode[STIX]{x1D702}$ the generic point of $C$ and $\unicode[STIX]{x1D70B}_{1}(C)$ its étale fundamental group. Let $f:X\rightarrow C$ be a smooth proper morphism, and $i\geqslant 0$ , $j$ integers. To the family of continuous $\mathbb{F}_{\ell }$ -linear representations $\unicode[STIX]{x1D70B}_{1}(C)\rightarrow \text{GL}(R^{i}f_{\ast }\mathbb{F}_{\ell }(j)_{\overline{\unicode[STIX]{x1D702}}})$ (where $\ell$ runs over primes $\neq p$ ), one can attach families of abstract modular curves $C_{0}(\ell )$ and $C_{1}(\ell )$ , which, in this setting, are the analogues of the usual modular curves $Y_{0}(\ell )$ and $Y_{1}(\ell )$ . If $i\not =2j$ , it is conjectured that the geometric and arithmetic gonalities of these abstract modular curves go to infinity with $\ell$ (for the geometric gonality, under a certain necessary condition). We prove the conjecture for the arithmetic gonality of the abstract modular curves $C_{1}(\ell )$ . We also obtain partial results for the growth of the geometric gonality of $C_{0}(\ell )$ and $C_{1}(\ell )$ . The common strategy underlying these results consists in reducing by specialization theory to the case where the base field $k$ is finite in order to apply techniques of counting rational points.

A technical ingredient in Faltings’ original approach to $p$-adic comparison theorems involves the construction of $K({\it\pi},1)$-neighborhoods for a smooth scheme $X$ over a mixed characteristic discrete valuation ring with a perfect residue field: every point $x\in X$ has an open neighborhood $U$ whose generic fiber is a $K({\it\pi},1)$ scheme (a notion analogous to having a contractible universal cover). We show how to extend this result to the logarithmically smooth case, which might help to simplify some proofs in $p$-adic Hodge theory. The main ingredient of the proof is a variant of a trick of Nagata used in his proof of the Noether normalization lemma.

Let $K$ be a number field. For any system of semisimple mod $\ell$ Galois representations $\{{\it\phi}_{\ell }:\text{Gal}(\bar{\mathbb{Q}}/K)\rightarrow \text{GL}_{N}(\mathbb{F}_{\ell })\}_{\ell }$ arising from étale cohomology (Definition 1), there exists a finite normal extension $L$ of $K$ such that if we denote ${\it\phi}_{\ell }(\text{Gal}(\bar{\mathbb{Q}}/K))$ and ${\it\phi}_{\ell }(\text{Gal}(\bar{\mathbb{Q}}/L))$ by $\bar{{\rm\Gamma}}_{\ell }$ and $\bar{{\it\gamma}}_{\ell }$, respectively, for all $\ell$ and let $\bar{\mathbf{S}}_{\ell }$ be the $\mathbb{F}_{\ell }$-semisimple subgroup of $\text{GL}_{N,\mathbb{F}_{\ell }}$ associated to $\bar{{\it\gamma}}_{\ell }$ (or $\bar{{\rm\Gamma}}_{\ell }$) by Nori’s theory [On subgroups of$\text{GL}_{n}(\mathbb{F}_{p})$, Invent. Math. 88 (1987), 257–275] for sufficiently large $\ell$, then the following statements hold for all sufficiently large $\ell$.

A(i) The formal character of $\bar{\mathbf{S}}_{\ell }{\hookrightarrow}\text{GL}_{N,\mathbb{F}_{\ell }}$ (Definition 1) is independent of $\ell$ and equal to the formal character of $(\mathbf{G}_{\ell }^{\circ })^{\text{der}}{\hookrightarrow}\text{GL}_{N,\mathbb{Q}_{\ell }}$, where $(\mathbf{G}_{\ell }^{\circ })^{\text{der}}$ is the derived group of the identity component of $\mathbf{G}_{\ell }$, the monodromy group of the corresponding semi-simplified $\ell$-adic Galois representation ${\rm\Phi}_{\ell }^{\text{ss}}$.

A(ii) The non-cyclic composition factors of $\bar{{\it\gamma}}_{\ell }$ and $\bar{\mathbf{S}}_{\ell }(\mathbb{F}_{\ell })$ are identical. Therefore, the composition factors of $\bar{{\it\gamma}}_{\ell }$ are finite simple groups of Lie type of characteristic $\ell$ and are cyclic groups.

B(i) The total $\ell$-rank $\text{rk}_{\ell }\bar{{\rm\Gamma}}_{\ell }$ of $\bar{{\rm\Gamma}}_{\ell }$ (Definition 14) is equal to the rank of $\bar{\mathbf{S}}_{\ell }$ and is therefore independent of $\ell$.

B(ii) The $A_{n}$-type $\ell$-rank $\text{rk}_{\ell }^{A_{n}}\bar{{\rm\Gamma}}_{\ell }$ of $\bar{{\rm\Gamma}}_{\ell }$ (Definition 14) for $n\in \mathbb{N}\setminus \{1,2,3,4,5,7,8\}$ and the parity of $(\text{rk}_{\ell }^{A_{4}}\bar{{\rm\Gamma}}_{\ell })/4$ are independent of $\ell$.

In this paper, we introduce variants of formal nearby cycles for a locally noetherian formal scheme over a complete discrete valuation ring. If the formal scheme is locally algebraizable, then our nearby cycle gives a generalization of Berkovich’s formal nearby cycle. Our construction is entirely scheme theoretic, and does not require rigid geometry. Our theory is intended for applications to the local study of the cohomology of Rapoport–Zink spaces.

For an odd prime p we prove a Riemann-Hurwitz type formula for odd eigenspaces of the standard Iwasawa modules over F(μp∞), the field obtained from a totally real number field F by adjoining all p-power roots of unity. We use a new approach based on the relationship between eigenspaces and étale cohomology groups over the cyclotomic ℤp-extension F∞ of F. The systematic use of étale cohomology greatly simplifies the proof and allows to generalize the classical result about the minus-eigenspace to all odd eigenspaces.

Let $K$ be a finitely generated extension of $\mathbb {Q}$. We consider the family of $\ell $-adic representations ($\ell $ varies through the set of all prime numbers) of the absolute Galois group of $K$, attached to $\ell $-adic cohomology of a separated scheme of finite type over $K$. We prove that the fields cut out from the algebraic closure of $K$by the kernels of the representations of the family are linearly disjoint over a finite extension of K. This gives a positive answer to a question of Serre.

We prove that the Newton polygons of Frobenius on the crystalline cohomology of proper smooth varieties satisfy a symmetry that results, in the case of projective smooth varieties, from Poincaré duality and the hard Lefschetz theorem. As a corollary, we deduce that the Betti numbers in odd degrees of any proper smooth variety over a field are even (a consequence of Hodge symmetry in characteristic zero), answering an old question of Serre. Then we give a generalization and a refinement for arbitrary varieties over finite fields, in response to later questions of Serre and of Katz.

Bott periodicity for the unitary and symplectic groups is fundamental to topological K-theory. Analogous to unitary topological K-theory, for algebraic K-groups with finite coefficients, similar results are consequences of the Milnor and Bloch-Kato conjectures, affirmed by Voevodsky, Rost and others. More generally, we prove that periodicity of the algebraic K-groups for any ring implies periodicity for the hermitian K-groups, analogous to orthogonal and symplectic topological K-theory.

The proofs use in an essential way higher KSC-theories, extending those of Anderson and Green. They also provide an upper bound for the higher hermitian K-groups in terms of higher algebraic K-groups.

We also relate periodicity to étale hermitian K-groups by proving a hermitian version of Thomason's étale descent theorem. The results are illustrated in detail for local fields, rings of integers in number fields, smooth complex algebraic varieties, rings of continuous functions on compact spaces, and group rings.

We prove a formula for the cup product on the ℓ-adic cohomology of the complement of a linear subspace arrangement.

We describe the maximal torus and maximal unipotent subgroup of the Picard variety of a proper scheme over a perfect field.

Sikora has given results which confirm the analogy between number fields and 3-manifolds. However, he has given proofs of his results which are very different in the arithmetic and in the topological case. In this paper, we show how to provide a unified approach to the results in the two cases. For this we introduce an equivariant cohomology which satisfies a localization theorem. In particular, we obtain a satisfactory explanation for the coincidences between Sikora’s formulas which leads us to clarify and to extend the dictionary of arithmetic topology.

We investigate the action of the Weil group on the compactly supported $\ell$-adic étale cohomology groups of rigid spaces over a local field. We prove that the alternating sum of the traces of the action is an integer and is independent of $\ell$ when either the rigid space is smooth or the characteristic of the base field is equal to 0. We modify the argument of T. Saito to prove a result on $\ell$-independence for nearby cycle cohomology, which leads to our $\ell$-independence result for smooth rigid spaces. In the general case, we use the finiteness theorem of Huber, which requires the restriction on the characteristic of the base field.

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.