No Arabic abstract
We give upper bounds for the level and the Pythagoras number of function fields over fraction fields of integral Henselian excellent local rings. In particular, we show that the Pythagoras number of $mathbb{R}((x_1,dots,x_n))$ is $leq 2^{n-1}$, which answers positively a question of Choi, Dai, Lam and Reznick.
This is the final version, to appear in Commentarii Mathematici Helvetici.
We give a definition of Cox rings and Cox sheaves for varieties over nonclosed fields that is compatible with torsors under quasitori, including universal torsors. We study their existence and classification, we make the relation to torsors precise, and we present arithmetic applications.
These are notes of my lectures at the summer school Higher-dimensional geometry over finite fields in Goettingen, June--July 2007. We present a proof of Tates theorem on homomorphisms of abelian varieties over finite fields (including the $ell=p$ case) that is based on a quaternion trick. In fact, a a slightly stronger version of those theorems with finite coefficients is proven.
In this paper we construct a noncommutative space of ``pointed Drinfeld modules that generalizes to the case of function fields the noncommutative spaces of commensurability classes of Q-lattices. It extends the usual moduli spaces of Drinfeld modules to possibly degenerate level structures. In the second part of the paper we develop some notions of quantum statistical mechanics in positive characteristic and we show that, in the case of Drinfeld modules of rank one, there is a natural time evolution on the associated noncommutative space, which is closely related to the positive characteristic L-functions introduced by Goss. The points of the usual moduli space of Drinfeld modules define KMS functionals for this time evolution. We also show that the scaling action on the dual system is induced by a Frobenius action, up to a Wick rotation to imaginary time.
We compute the Chow group of zero-cycles on certain Ch{^a}telet surfaces over local fields.