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Questions tagged [grothendieck-topology]

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A bestiary of topologies on Sch

The category of schemes has a large (and to me, slightly bewildering) number of what seem like different Grothendieck (pre)topologies. Zariski, ok, I get. Etale, that's alright, I think. Nisnevich? ...
David Roberts's user avatar
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51 votes
3 answers
7k views

What is the purpose of the flat/fppf/fpqc topologies?

There have been other similar questions before (e.g. What is your picture of the flat topology?), but none of them seem to have been answered fully. As someone who originally started in topology/...
Simon Rose's user avatar
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37 votes
4 answers
5k views

In what sense is the étale topology equivalent to the Euclidean topology?

I have heard it said more than once—on Wikipedia, for example—that the étale topology on the category of, say, smooth varieties over $\mathbb{C}$, is equivalent to the Euclidean topology. I have not ...
Andrew Dudzik's user avatar
31 votes
1 answer
3k views

What is your picture of the flat topology?

I recently tried to explain the fppf site to a differential geometer. I started with the etale site, where I had two motivating claims: If X is a smooth projective variety over the complexes, the ...
Hunter Brooks's user avatar
30 votes
1 answer
3k views

Cohomology of sheaves in different Grothendieck topologies

Suppose I have a sheaf $\mathcal{F}$ on the (small) étale site over $X$. By restriction, $\mathcal{F}$ is also a sheaf on $X$ (with the Zariski topology). When is it that the sheaf cohomologies (i.e. ...
Sam Derbyshire's user avatar
27 votes
6 answers
9k views

What is a topos?

According to Higher Topos Theory math/0608040 a topos is a category C which behaves like the category of sets, or (more generally) the category of sheaves of sets on a topological space. Could one ...
Ilya Nikokoshev's user avatar
27 votes
1 answer
966 views

Can we just use effective descent morphisms (pure morphisms) as covers?

There are a number of notions of "cover" for a scheme: etale, faithfully flat, fpqc, fppf, Zariski, Nisnevich, etc. Most of these have a nice property, which is that a cover of that type satisfies ...
Jonathan Beardsley's user avatar
26 votes
1 answer
2k views

Topos associated to a category

For each topos $\mathbb E$ let $\mathcal O(\mathbb E)$ be the locally presentable category of objects in $\mathbb E$. We can make $\mathcal O$ into a contravariant functor to the category of locally ...
Marc Nieper-Wißkirchen's user avatar
26 votes
2 answers
2k views

Flat versus étale cohomology

Although the definition of étale ($\ell$-adic) cohomology is scary, I have at least some intuition for how it should behave: for instance, when it makes sense, I expect that it should be “similar” to ...
user84144's user avatar
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21 votes
1 answer
2k views

Points in sites (etale, fppf, ... )

I asked a part of this in an earlier question, but that part of my question didn't receive precedence. Etale site is useful - examples of using the small fppf site? Let $X$ be a scheme (assume it ...
LMN's user avatar
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21 votes
1 answer
846 views

Is there a category of topological spaces such that open surjections admit local sections?

The class of open surjections $Q \to X$ is a Grothendieck pretopology on the category $Top$ of spaces, and includes the class of maps $\amalg U_\alpha \to X$ where $\{U_\alpha\}$ is an open cover of $...
David Roberts's user avatar
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20 votes
3 answers
2k views

Voevodsky's Triangulated Categories of Motives and their Relationships

As we know, Voevodsky constructed several candidates for the triangulated category of motives using different constructions and topologies (h, qfh, etale, and Nisnevich). I would like to know what ...
user98070's user avatar
  • 203
20 votes
1 answer
3k views

Crystalline cohomology via the syntomic site

Hello, Let $k$ be a field of characteristic $p > 0$, and let $Y$ be a $k$-scheme. Consider the sites $Y_{syn}$ and $(Y/W_n)_{cris}$ (where $W_n$ are the Witt vectors of $k$ of length $n$), of $Y$ ...
Nicolás's user avatar
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20 votes
1 answer
961 views

Are completions stalks under some Grothendieck topology?

Let $R$ be a ring, and $\mathfrak{p}$ be a prime ideal. The stalk at $\mathfrak{p}$ with respect to the etale topology is $(R_{\mathfrak{p}})^{sh}$ (the strict henselization of $R_{\mathfrak{p}}$). ...
James D. Taylor's user avatar
19 votes
1 answer
883 views

Has this "backwards" perspective on toposes been studied?

Topos theory can be seen as a categorification of topology via the following analogies. \begin{array}{|c|c|} \hline \text{locales}&\text{Grothendieck toposes}\\\hline \text{open sets}&\text{...
Oscar Cunningham's user avatar
18 votes
2 answers
4k views

Locally constant sheaves for the étale topology, lack of intuition about "étale-localness"

I have started studying some étale cohomology and I am trying to build up some intuition about the concept of local for the étale topology. I can understand some nice examples (like Kummer exact ...
Lorenzo's user avatar
  • 291
16 votes
1 answer
1k views

Motivic cohomology with finite coefficients for singular varieties

Let $X$ be a smooth variety over a field $K$ whose characteristic does not divide a positive integer $m$. Then the motivic cohomology of $X$ with coefficients in $\mathbb Z/m(j)$ can be computed in ...
Leonid Positselski's user avatar
14 votes
4 answers
3k views

Grothendieck Topologies versus Pretopologies

The wikipedia article(s) as well as the nlab article(s) about Grothendieck topologies and Grothendieck pretopologies are careful to differentiate the two very emphatically and to point out that ...
underwhelmer's user avatar
13 votes
3 answers
2k views

Resources for topos theory

I am trying to learn topos theory and I am finding a strong scarcity of resources. Is there any canonical textbook to refer someone to when learning this topic? So far, I have only been able to find ...
Sofía Marlasca Aparicio's user avatar
13 votes
1 answer
1k views

Grothendieck topologies, Mayer-Vietoris, and points

I am trying to think about certain problems in the theory of motives without having a proper background in Grothendieck topologies and the like, hoping to teach myself the related techniques in the ...
Leonid Positselski's user avatar
13 votes
0 answers
481 views

Making the conceptual leap from locales to Grothendieck topologies?

I find the definition for locales and sheaves on locales to be straightforward, but I'm stumbling over the idea of a Grothendieck topology. Is there a nice way to see roughly how the latter ...
Harrison Smith's user avatar
12 votes
1 answer
2k views

Reference request: Book of topology from "Topos" point of view

Question: Is there any book of topology in the modern language of topos theory? Motivation: In "Sheaves in Geometry and Logic" Mac Lane and Moerdijk say: "For Grothendieck, topology became the ...
M. Carmona's user avatar
12 votes
0 answers
990 views

Stacks in the fpqc topology

This is related to Matt Satriano's earlier question about an analog of Artin's theorem for stacks with an fpqc cover by a scheme. Suppose one developed the theory of stacks in the fpqc topology and ...
Thomas Nevins's user avatar
11 votes
2 answers
664 views

Equivalence of the definitions of a sheaf in SGA4 and in "Categories and Sheaves"

I asked this question on Mathematics Stack Exchange, but got no answer. I don't understand why the definition of a sheaf (Definition 17.3.1 (ii)) given in the book [KS] Categories and Sheaves by ...
Pierre-Yves Gaillard's user avatar
11 votes
1 answer
892 views

Are all Grothendieck topologies on Set equivalent?

The category $\textbf{Set}$ can be given a Grothendieck topology where the covering families are jointly surjective families of set inclusions $\{X_i\stackrel{\phi_i}{\hookrightarrow} X\}\in\mathrm{...
Qfwfq's user avatar
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11 votes
0 answers
741 views

When is fppf better than fpqc (and vice versa)?

Depending on a geometer's needs, they may use the Zariski/etale/syntomic/etc. topology on the spaces they consider. I know some settings where etale topology is better suited for the task than the ...
user avatar
10 votes
5 answers
1k views

Grothendieck topology for a non-small category

To define a Grothendieck topology of a category, we usually require that the category is small. Question 1: Why do we need to require the category to be small? I thought that the problem was that ...
H. Shindoh's user avatar
10 votes
3 answers
2k views

Representable Presheaf

I have a very quick question. Is there an easy example of a representable presheaf on a site that is not a sheaf? This certainly can't happen on a small FPPF site so I would expect a counterexample to ...
Lalit Jain's user avatar
10 votes
1 answer
504 views

Is there a way to "puncture" a topos?

Let $E$ be a (Grothendieck) topos, e.g. $E = \text{Sh}(X)$ for a topological space $X$. And let $p = (p^*, p_*):\text{Set}\to E$ be a point of $E$, is there a way to "puncture" $E$ in some sense? By "...
h__'s user avatar
  • 629
10 votes
1 answer
838 views

Is there a direct proof that affine schemes are fppf quasi-compact?

Let $A$ be a (commutative) ring. A family $(B_i)_{i\in I}$ of $A$-algebras is said to be an fppf cover if it satisfies three properties: (1) each $B_i$ is flat as an $A$-module, (2) each $B_i$ is ...
JBorger's user avatar
  • 9,408
10 votes
1 answer
506 views

What is the total space of a stack after all?

From my general experience I think for myself of what follows as some kind of taboo question for some reason: in my imagination, everybody wants an answer to this but somehow thinks it shall not be ...
მამუკა ჯიბლაძე's user avatar
10 votes
1 answer
743 views

Stable motivic cohomology with finite coefficients?

In this question, which attracted no responces so far, I've asked whether it is possible to extend the Beilinson-Lichtenbaum etale descent rule for motivic cohomology to singular varieties, in ...
Leonid Positselski's user avatar
9 votes
1 answer
2k views

Torsors and the fpqc topology

Fix a scheme $S$, a group scheme $G/S$ (let us say smooth, maybe even affine with some finiteness conditions if you like), and suppose I have some other $S$-scheme $P$ with a right $G$-action. We want ...
Tom Lovering's user avatar
9 votes
3 answers
2k views

Gerbes and Stacks

The definition of a gerbe on a smooth manifold that I know is that - after fixing an open cover $U_i$, a gerbe consists of the data of line bundles $L_{ij}$ on two-fold-intersections $U_{ij}$, ...
Matthias Ludewig's user avatar
9 votes
1 answer
410 views

Reference for the Brown-Gersten property for smooth manifolds

A classical result by Brown and Gersten says that to verify the homotopy descent property for the Zariski topology it suffices to verify it for Zariski squares and the empty cover of the empty scheme. ...
Dmitri Pavlov's user avatar
9 votes
0 answers
369 views

Topologies (and sheaves) on Cat and CAT

I've been wondering lately what sort of Grothendieck (pre)topologies there are on $Cat$ (the category of small categories) and $CAT$ (the v. large category of large categories - to forestall criticism ...
David Roberts's user avatar
  • 35.4k
8 votes
1 answer
791 views

Hypercovers of sheaves in classical and quasi-categories

I am interested in relating the definition of hypercovers in the $\infty$-topos of sheaves on an $\infty$-Grothendieck site to the classical definition of hypercovers of presheaves on a Grothendieck ...
COhrt's user avatar
  • 187
8 votes
1 answer
342 views

The Grothendieck topology of closed immersions on schemes

Let $S$ be a scheme. Let's define a Grothendick topology on $\mathrm{Sch}/S$ where a covering family $\{f_i:Z_i\rightarrow X\}_{i\in I}$ on an $S$-scheme $X$ is a collection of closed immersions of $S$...
FNH's user avatar
  • 329
7 votes
1 answer
465 views

When is a basis of a topological space a Grothendieck pretopology?

Bases of a topological space in point set topology will in general form a coverage on its category of inclusion on open subsets and on its category of inclusion on basic opens, but it takes a bit more ...
saolof's user avatar
  • 1,947
7 votes
1 answer
977 views

Applications of $h$-topology and $h$-descent

This is a technical problem about applications of Grothendieck topologies. In some recent works, the technique of $h$-topology and $h$-descent is very useful, for an introduction see https://stacks....
Zhiyu's user avatar
  • 6,622
7 votes
1 answer
464 views

Needless axiom for Grothendieck topologies?

Hi, The first axiom for a Grothendieck (pre)topology on a category $C$ says that for every object $X\in C$, the family consisting of just the identity $1_X : X\to X$ should be a covering family. Why ...
Nicolás's user avatar
  • 2,842
7 votes
1 answer
451 views

Coverage, itself considered as a presheaf

A coverage $J$ on a category $C$ assigns to an object $U$ of $C$ a set of covering families $J(U)$. The covering families are required to be stable under pullback, which amounts to requiring that for ...
Ali Lahijani's user avatar
7 votes
2 answers
886 views

Nisnevich topology on non-(locally) Noetherian schemes

Background Lurie has in DAG XI a definition (given below) of a Nisnevich cover for arbitrary commutative rings, which reduces to the usual one for Noetherian rings. It boils down to being a etale ...
David Roberts's user avatar
  • 35.4k
7 votes
1 answer
255 views

Subobject classifier for sheaves on large sites with WISC

Let $\mathsf{C}$ be a possibly large category with a Grothendieck topology satisfying the Weakly Initial Set of Covers condition: there is for each $X$ a set (not a proper class) of covering families ...
Robbie Lyman's user avatar
  • 1,996
7 votes
1 answer
267 views

Coverages that are not pretopologies

A coverage on a category $C$ is a collection of covering families $\{u_i \to a\}$ for each object $a$ of $C$ such that for each arrow $b\to a$ there is a covering family for $b$ which fits into a ...
David Roberts's user avatar
  • 35.4k
7 votes
1 answer
347 views

Which dense inclusions of sites are ∞-dense?

An inclusion of sites f: D→C is dense if it induces an equivalence between the categories of sheaves on C and D. Likewise, f is ∞-dense is it induces an equivalence between the ∞-categories of ∞-...
Dmitri Pavlov's user avatar
7 votes
1 answer
400 views

What sheaf topoi classify: attribution request

Is there an accepted name or attribution by which to refer to the following well-known theorem? If C is a small site, then the topos of sheaves on C is the classifying topos for flat cover-...
Mike Shulman's user avatar
  • 66.8k
7 votes
1 answer
101 views

Bisimplicial spaces as a coequalizer of maps between "simpler" bisimplicial spaces

From a bisimplicial space $T$, one can consider the simplicial spaces $p \mapsto T_{pp}$, $p \mapsto | q \mapsto T_{pq}|$, and $q \mapsto |p \mapsto T_{pq}|$, where $| \cdot|$ denotes geometric ...
ems's user avatar
  • 71
7 votes
0 answers
270 views

Generalizing uniform structures as Grothendieck topologies

Recently, I was reading a classical book "Sheaves in Geometry and Logic" by S. MacLane and I. Moerdijk, and then it stroke me that, that the definition of Grothendieck Topology bears some ...
Nik Bren's user avatar
  • 519
7 votes
0 answers
219 views

Pushout of Nisnevich sheaves

Let us consider the projective line $\mathbb{P}^1$ over a field $k$ and take the following open embeddings $$j_{\epsilon}\colon \mathbb{P}^1\setminus\{0,\infty\} \to \mathbb{P}^1\setminus\{\epsilon\}$$...
Stefano Nicotra's user avatar