Skip to main content

All Questions

Filter by
Sorted by
Tagged with
27 votes
4 answers
3k views

Have people successfully worked with the full ring of differential operators in characteristic p?

This question is inspired by an earlier one about the possibility of using the full ring of differential operators on a flag variety to develop a theory of localization in characteristic $p$. (Here ...
Emerton's user avatar
  • 57.6k
13 votes
0 answers
943 views

Beilinson-Bernstein localization in positive characteristic

This is a follow-up to this question; in particular, I'm wondering if anyone can expand upon the interesting answers given by Kevin McGerty and David Ben-Zvi there. (In particular, in this question I'...
Chuck Hague's user avatar
  • 3,637
34 votes
2 answers
3k views

The work of E. Artin and F. K. Schmidt on (what are now called) the Weil conjectures.

I was reading Dieudonne's "On the history of the Weil conjectures" and found two things that surprised me. Dieudonne makes some assertions about the work of Artin and Schmidt which are no doubt ...
Kevin Buzzard's user avatar
35 votes
6 answers
8k views

How much of scheme theory can you visualize?

I am just starting to learn about schemes and algebraic geometry in general, but I am finding it very hard to visualize things. For example, affine schemes that look like varieties are easily ...
user3860's user avatar
  • 479
7 votes
3 answers
3k views

congruent to 1 mod p

This is a somewhat vague question: for a prime number p, we often see that various counts come out to be 1 modulo p. What are the possible reasons for this? Here are some I've encountered: For some ...
15 votes
2 answers
814 views

Can the failure of the multiplicativity of Euler factors at bad primes be corrected?

Warning: This one of those does-anyone-know-how-to-fix-this-vague-problem questions, and not an actual mathematics question at all. If $X$ is a scheme of finite type over a finite field, then the ...
JBorger's user avatar
  • 9,418
20 votes
3 answers
6k views

Closed vs Rational Points on Schemes

Background: When Ueno builds the fully faithful functor from Var/k to Sch/k he mentions that the variety $V$ can be identified with the rational points of $t(V)$ over $k$. I know how to prove this on ...
Matt's user avatar
  • 970
24 votes
5 answers
6k views

Wild Ramification

The question is, loosely put, what is known about wild ramification? Is there a semi-well-established theory of wild ramification that can be furthered in various specific situations? Or maybe there ...
29 votes
3 answers
4k views

A book on locally ringed spaces?

Are there enough interesting results that hold for general locally ringed spaces for a book to have been written? If there are, do you know of a book? If you do, pelase post it, one per answer and a ...
6 votes
0 answers
456 views

On periods of algebraic integers modulo rational primes

I run, somewhat indirectly, into the following problem and I have no hints where to look in the literature in search for answers or clues. Let $K$ be a number field, which we may assume Galois if it ...
Andrea Mori's user avatar
12 votes
4 answers
4k views

Nonalgebraic complex manifolds

I'm turning here (a variation of) a question asked by a friend of mine. For the purposes of this question I will say that a compact complex manifold is projective if it is isomorphic to a subvariety ...
Andrea Ferretti's user avatar
40 votes
1 answer
4k views

A closed subscheme of an open subscheme that is not an open subscheme of a closed subscheme?

A morphism $f: V \rightarrow X$ of schemes is a locally closed immersion if it can be factored into a closed immersion followed by an open immersion. It is not hard to show that if $f$ is an open ...
Ravi Vakil's user avatar
  • 3,857
15 votes
1 answer
4k views

Frobenius Descent

Let $S$ be a scheme of positive characteristic $p$ and $X$ a smooth $S$-scheme. Let $F:X\rightarrow X^{(p)}$ denote the relative Frobenius. A result by Cartier (often called Cartier descent or ...
Lars's user avatar
  • 4,450
14 votes
3 answers
2k views

Representations in characteristic p

Let G be a finite group and let F be an algebraically closed field. If the characteristic of F is 0, then the number of irreducible F-representations of G is given by the number of conjugacy classes ...
Joel Dodge's user avatar
  • 2,799
17 votes
2 answers
3k views

Why is one interested in the mod p reduction of modular curves and Shimura varieties?

Why is one interested in the mod p reduction of modular curves and Shimura varieties? From an article I learned that this can be used to prove the Eichler-Shimura relation which in turn proves the ...
user avatar
16 votes
3 answers
2k views

On Category O in positive characteristic

Let $G$ be a semisimple algebraic group over an algebraically closed field $k$. In the case that $k$ has characteristic 0, there has been intensive study of the BGG category O of representations of ...
Chuck Hague's user avatar
  • 3,637
25 votes
5 answers
7k views

Reduced scheme and closed points

In The Geometry of Schemes by Eisenbud and Harris, Exercise I-32 asks one to show that a scheme $X$ is reduced if and only if every local ring $\mathcal{O}_{X,p}$ is reduced for closed points $p \in X$...
brunoh's user avatar
  • 1,128
4 votes
1 answer
412 views

F_q-structures on schemes

Let $k|\mathbb{F}_q$ be a field extension. An $\mathbb{F}_q$-structure on a $k$-algebra $A$ is an $\mathbb{F}_q$-subalgebra $A _0$ of $A$ such that $A _0 \otimes _{\mathbb{F}_q} k \cong A$ via the ...
user717's user avatar
  • 5,243
21 votes
5 answers
5k views

Mirror symmetry mod p?! ... Physics mod p?!

In his answer to this question, Scott Carnahan mentions "mirror symmetry mod p". What is that? (Some kind of) Gromov-Witten invariants can be defined for varieties over fields other than $\mathbb{C}$...
Kevin H. Lin's user avatar
47 votes
2 answers
9k views

current status of crystalline cohomology?

The great references given on Ilya's question make me wonder about the current status of the many conjectures and open questions in Illusie's survey from 1994 on crystalline cohomology. Obviously (...
9 votes
1 answer
566 views

algorithm for calculating the Chow groups of a variety over a finite field

Is there an algorithm for calculating the Chow groups of a variety over a finite field? It is know that $H^{2i,i}_\mathrm{mot}(X,\mathbf{Z}) = CH^i(X)$. In how many cases does this help us?
user avatar
42 votes
2 answers
3k views

Commutative rings to algebraic spaces in one jump?

Typically, in the functor of points approach, one constructs the category of algebraic spaces by first constructing the category of locally representable sheaves for the global Zariski topology (...
9 votes
2 answers
656 views

How does the order of a pole of a zeta function indicate any geometric information?

Here, I'm primarily concerced about zeta functions of hypersurfaces over fields of finite characteristic. Assume $F_q$ to be a finite field with q elements. Consider the zeta function of the ...
Yinbang Lin's user avatar
14 votes
3 answers
1k views

Non-simply-connected smooth proper scheme over Z?

Source This question came up in the discussion between Kevin Buzzard and Minhyong Kim in the comments to Smooth proper scheme over Z. It was 2 weeks ago, so I took the liberty of posting it as ...
11 votes
1 answer
2k views

Are automorphism groups of hypersurfaces reduced ?

In the following article : "H. Matsumura, P. Monsky, On the automorphisms of hypersurfaces, J. Math. Kyoto Univ. 3 (1964) 347-361", it is shown that in finite characteristic, automorphism groups of ...
Olivier Benoist's user avatar
8 votes
1 answer
1k views

obstruction to smooth lifting of smooth schemes

According to general theory, for a square zero thickening defined by an ideal I: SpecA -> SpecA', there is an obstruction of lifting a smooth scheme X over A to a smooth scheme over A' living in H^2(X,...
Yuhao Huang's user avatar
  • 5,052
16 votes
1 answer
1k views

Coarse moduli spaces over Z and F_p

I would like to know to what extent it is possible to compare fibers over $\mathbb{F}_p$ of coarse moduli spaces over $\mathbb{Z}$, and coarse moduli spaces over $\mathbb{F}_p$. I ask a more precise ...
Olivier Benoist's user avatar
3 votes
2 answers
612 views

tamely branched cover over P^1

k is an algebraically closed field, X is a smooth, connected, projective curve over k. f: X-->P^1 is a finite morphism. Let t be a parameter of P^1, suppose f is etale outside t=0 and t=\infty, and ...
TJCM's user avatar
  • 1,091
3 votes
1 answer
723 views

A strange logical implication in algebraic geometry

So there's an old theorem of Lang and Weil showing that the Riemann hypothesis for curves over finite fields implies a kind of quasi-riemann hypothesis for surfaces over finite fields. I am wondering:...
David Hansen's user avatar
  • 13.1k
42 votes
6 answers
6k views

Arbitrary products of schemes don't exist, do they?

Thinking of arbitrary tensor products of rings, $A=\otimes_i A_i$ ($i\in I$, an arbitrary index set), I have recently realized that $Spec(A)$ should be the product of the schemes $Spec(A_i)$, a ...
Georges Elencwajg's user avatar
16 votes
2 answers
1k views

Is the tangent space functor from PD formal groups to Lie algebras an equivalence?

The previous version of this question was rather badly broken, and I hope this version makes some sense. There have been a few questions on MathOverflow about how much representation-theoretic ...
S. Carnahan's user avatar
  • 45.7k
2 votes
2 answers
2k views

Reference of primitive root mod p

Can any body give me a reference of the result about primitive root mod p for a class of prime number p. The result that I am looking for is something along this line: $2$ is a primitive root mod $p$...
user808's user avatar
  • 73
6 votes
2 answers
945 views

Notation/name for "Artin-Schreier roots"?

If x is an element of a field K and n is a positive integer, we have both a symbol and a name for a root of the polynomial t^n - x = 0: we denote it by x^{1/n} and call it an nth root of x. Of course ...
Pete L. Clark's user avatar
19 votes
3 answers
2k views

Elkies' supersingularity theorem in higher dimension

The following is a theorem of Elkies: Let $X$ be an elliptic curve over $\mathbb{Q}$. Then there are infinitely many primes $p$ such that the action of Frobenius on $H^1(\mathcal{O}, X)$ is zero. ...
David E Speyer's user avatar
11 votes
4 answers
2k views

The category of finite locally-free commutative group schemes

I'm trying to understand the properties of the category $\mathcal{FL}/S$ of finite locally-free commutative group schemes over an arbitrary base-scheme $S$. I know it is not in general an abelian ...
fls's user avatar
  • 111
11 votes
2 answers
1k views

Class groups of normal domains over finite fields

Let R be a local, normal domain of dimension 2. Suppose that R contains a finite field. I am interested in knowing when the class group of R is torsion. In characteristic 0, this is known to be ...
Hailong Dao's user avatar
  • 30.6k
10 votes
2 answers
1k views

Does a universal Frobenius map exist?

For any prime p, one has the Frobenius homomorphism Fp defined on rings of characteristic p. Is there any kind of object, say U, with a "universal Frobenius map" F such that for any prime p and any ...
Marc Nieper-Wißkirchen's user avatar
12 votes
2 answers
1k views

Weil Conjectures for nonprojective algebraic varieties

If we replace projective variety with algebraic variety in the statement of the Weil conjectures what happens? To me it seems the statement still makes sense. But is it still true?
John McCarthy's user avatar
5 votes
2 answers
1k views

Weil Conjectures for Grassmannians

To establish the Weil conjectures for $n$-dimensional projective space over a finite field is elementary. Does there exist a simple direct proof of the conjectures for finite field Grassmannians?
John McCarthy's user avatar
10 votes
2 answers
393 views

Counting points on varieties of low codimension

The graduate students here at MIT have been thinking about questions like the following: Over $\mathbb{F}\_q$, how many symmetric matrices are there with nonzero determinant and $0$'s on the diagonal? ...
David E Speyer's user avatar
15 votes
1 answer
668 views

Can an algebraic space fail to have a universal map to a scheme?

Let $\mathcal{X}$ be an algebraic space. Can it happen that there does not exist a map $\mathcal{X} \to X$ with $X$ a scheme that is initial for maps from $\mathcal{X}$ to schemes? Are there ...
David Zureick-Brown's user avatar
15 votes
5 answers
3k views

Can we count isogeny classes of abelian varieties?

Let's fix a finite field F and consider abelian varieties of dimension g over F. Can we say how many isogeny classes there are? Is it even clear that there's more than one isogeny class? For g=1, ...
Rebecca Bellovin's user avatar
13 votes
3 answers
816 views

Constructing a degeneration (as a group scheme) of G_m to G_a

SGA 3, expose 12, remark 1.6 says that one can easily construct a group scheme over a discrete valuation ring with generic fiber Gm and special fiber Ga. What is such an example?
David Zureick-Brown's user avatar
11 votes
4 answers
3k views

What does ramification have to do with separability?

Does ramification have anything to do with inseparability? It feels like an extension of Q in which p ramifies should somehow correspond to an extension of F_p(t). Does totally ramified <--> purely ...
David Corwin's user avatar
  • 15.4k
48 votes
5 answers
15k views

Algebraically closed fields of positive characteristic

I'm taking introductory algebraic geometry this term, so a lot of the theorems we see in class start with "Let k be an algebraically closed field." One of the things that's annoyed me is that as far ...
Harrison Brown's user avatar
18 votes
4 answers
2k views

What are the Benefits of Using Algebraic Spaces over Schemes?

I have heard that algebraic spaces have better formal properties than schemes. What are these benefits? Also, is there a natural way to go straight from affine schemes to algebraic spaces bypassing ...
Dinakar Muthiah's user avatar
9 votes
3 answers
2k views

Characterisation for separable extension of a field

Can someone verify this for me.. or tell me what reference shows me this... is this true: Let $k$ be a field. Then a field extension $K$ of $k$ is separable over $k$ iff for any field extension $L \...
Jose Capco's user avatar
  • 2,275
6 votes
4 answers
828 views

Can isomorphisms of schemes be constructed on formal neighborhoods?

Let (A,m) be a complete local Noetherian ring and let X and Y be two schemes of finite type over A (and flat over A). Let Xn and Yn be the reductions of X and Y mod mn+1. Question: Suppose there is ...
David Zureick-Brown's user avatar
20 votes
1 answer
2k views

Functorial characterization of open subschemes?

Given a morphism of schemes f: U → X, can one determine when f is an isomorphism of U onto an open subscheme of X in terms of some induced functors between the categories of quasicoherent modules ...
Manny Reyes's user avatar
  • 5,407
8 votes
2 answers
8k views

What does "supersingular" mean?

Are supersingular primes and supersingular elliptic curves related? (this was essentially a subquestion in my earlier question, but still looks sufficiently different to me to deserve a separate post)...
Ilya Nikokoshev's user avatar