We prove that the special-value conjecture for the zeta function of a proper, regular, flat arithmetic surface formulated in [6] at $s=1$ is equivalent to the Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture for the Jacobian of the generic fibre. There are two key results in the proof. The first is the triviality of the correction factor of [6, Conjecture 5.12], which we show for arbitrary regular proper arithmetic schemes. In the proof we need to develop some results for the eh-topology on schemes over finite fields which might be of independent interest. The second result is a different proof of a formula due to Geisser, relating the cardinalities of the Brauer and the Tate–Shafarevich group, which applies to arbitrary rather than only totally imaginary base fields.

We prove that, for any small $\varepsilon > 0$, the number of irrationals among the following odd zeta values: $\zeta (3),\zeta (5),\zeta (7),\ldots ,\zeta (s)$ is at least $( c_0 - \varepsilon )({s^{1/2}}/{(\log s)^{1/2}})$, provided $s$ is a sufficiently large odd integer with respect to $\varepsilon$. The constant $c_0 = 1.192507\ldots$ can be expressed in closed form. Our work improves the lower bound $2^{(1-\varepsilon )({\log s}/{\log \log s})}$ of the previous work of Fischler, Sprang and Zudilin. We follow the same strategy of Fischler, Sprang and Zudilin. The main new ingredient is an asymptotically optimal design for the zeros of the auxiliary rational functions, which relates to the inverse totient problem.

Building upon ideas of the second and third authors, we prove that at least $2^{(1-\unicode[STIX]{x1D700})(\log s)/(\text{log}\log s)}$ values of the Riemann zeta function at odd integers between 3 and $s$ are irrational, where $\unicode[STIX]{x1D700}$ is any positive real number and $s$ is large enough in terms of $\unicode[STIX]{x1D700}$. This lower bound is asymptotically larger than any power of $\log s$; it improves on the bound $(1-\unicode[STIX]{x1D700})(\log s)/(1+\log 2)$ that follows from the Ball–Rivoal theorem. The proof is based on construction of several linear forms in odd zeta values with related coefficients.

In this paper we follow the approach of Bertrand–Beukers (and of Bertrand’s later work), based on differential Galois theory, to prove a very general version of Shidlovsky’s lemma that applies to Padé-approximation problems at several points, both at functional and numerical levels (that is, before and after evaluating at a specific point). This allows us to obtain a new proof of the Ball–Rivoal theorem on irrationality of infinitely many values of the Riemann zeta function at odd integers, inspired by the proof of the Siegel–Shidlovsky theorem on values of $E$-functions: Shidlovsky’s lemma is used to replace Nesterenko’s linear independence criterion with Siegel’s, so that no lower bound is needed on the linear forms in zeta values. The same strategy provides a new proof, and a refinement, of Nishimoto’s theorem on values of $L$-functions of Dirichlet characters.

We study a family of mixed Tate motives over $\mathbb{Z}$ whose periods are linear forms in the zeta values $\unicode[STIX]{x1D701}(n)$. They naturally include the Beukers–Rhin–Viola integrals for $\unicode[STIX]{x1D701}(2)$ and the Ball–Rivoal linear forms in odd zeta values. We give a general integral formula for the coefficients of the linear forms and a geometric interpretation of the vanishing of the coefficients of a given parity. The main underlying result is a geometric construction of a minimal ind-object in the category of mixed Tate motives over $\mathbb{Z}$ which contains all the non-trivial extensions between simple objects. In a joint appendix with Don Zagier, we prove the compatibility between the structure of the motives considered here and the representations of their periods as sums of series.