# Birational morphism and first cohomology group

Let $f:X\rightarrow Y$ be a proper birational morphism of smooth projective varieties over $k=\bar k$ ($char(k)>0$). Is it true that $H^1(Y,\mathbb Z_l)\stackrel{f^*}\simeq H^1(X,\mathbb Z_l)$ ($l\neq char(k)$) ?

Yes. It's sufficient to prove an isomorphism on mod $\ell^n$ cohomology for all $n$.
But using the exact sequence $\mu_{\ell^n} \to \mathbb G_m \to \mathbb G_m$, it is sufficient to prove that $H^1(X, \mathbb G_m) \to H^1(Y, \mathbb G_m)$ is an isomorphism on the identity component.
• Thank you very much for you help. Could you, please, giveme a reference proving this birational invariance of $Pic^0$ (or $Alb$) ? – user100915 Sep 12 '15 at 20:26
Lang's Abelian Varieties asserts the birational invariance of the Albanese is trivial. For some pointer of how to do it, say $U$ is an open subvariety of $X$ and $f: U \to Y$ is dominant and is an isomorphism onto $f(U)$. Then $U$ has a canonical embedding into both $Alb(X)$ and $Alb(Y)$, and then you can get a map from $X$ to $Alb(Y)$. This should give you what you want.