Total $p$-differentials on schemes over $Z/p^2$

For a scheme $X$ defined over the length $2$ $p$-typical Witt vectors $W_2(k)$ of a characteristic $p$ field, we introduce total $p$-differentials which interpolate between Frobenius-twisted differentials and Buiums $p$-differentials. They form a sheaf over the reduction $X_0$, and behave as if they were the sheaf of differentials of $X$ over a deeper base below $W_2(k)$. This allows us to construct the analogues of Gauss-Manin connections and Kodaira-Spencer classes as in the Katz-Oda formalism. We make connections to Frobenius lifts, Borger-Weilands biring formalism, and Deligne--Illusie classes.

Diophantine and tropical geometry, and uniformity of rational points on curves

We describe recent work connecting combinatorics and tropical/non-Archimedean geometry to Diophantine geometry, particularly the uniformity conjectures for rational points on curves and for torsion packets of curves. The method of Chabauty--Coleman lies at the heart of this connection, and we emphasize the clarification that tropical geometry affords throughout the theory of $p$-adic integration, especially to the comparison of analytic continuations of $p$-adic integrals and to the analysis of zeros of integrals on domains admitting monodromy.

Tropical Skeletons

In this paper, we study the interplay between tropical and analytic geometry for closed subschemes of toric varieties. Let $K$ be a complete non-Archimedean field, and let $X$ be a closed subscheme of a toric variety over $K$. We define the tropical skeleton of $X$ as the subset of the associated Berkovich space $X^{rm an}$ which collects all Shilov boundary points in the fibers of the Kajiwara--Payne tropicalization map. We develop polyhedral criteria for limit points to belong to the tropical skeleton, and for the tropical skeleton to be closed. We apply the limit point criteria to the question of continuity of the canonical section of the tropicalization map on the multiplicity-one locus. This map is known to be continuous on all torus orbits; we prove criteria for continuity when crossing torus orbits. When $X$ is schon and defined over a discretely valued field, we show that the tropical skeleton coincides with a skeleton of a strictly semistable pair, and is naturally isomorphic to the parameterizing complex of Helm--Katz.

Uniform bounds for the number of rational points on curves of small Mordell--Weil rank

Let $X$ be a curve of genus $ggeq 2$ over a number field $F$ of degree $d = [F:Q]$. The conjectural existence of a uniform bound $N(g,d)$ on the number $#X(F)$ of $F$-rational points of $X$ is an outstanding open problem in arithmetic geometry, known by [CHM97] to follow from the Bombieri--Lang conjecture. A related conjecture posits the existence of a uniform bound $N_{{rm tors},dagger}(g,d)$ on the number of geometric torsion points of the Jacobian $J$ of $X$ which lie on the image of $X$ under an Abel--Jacobi map. For fixed $X$ this quantity was conjectured to be finite by Manin--Mumford, and was proved to be so by Raynaud [Ray83]. We give an explicit uniform bound on $#X(F)$ when $X$ has Mordell--Weil rank $rleq g-3$. This generalizes recent work of Stoll on uniform bounds on hyperelliptic curves of small rank to arbitrary curves. Using the same techniques, we give an explicit, unconditional uniform bound on the number of $F$-rational torsion points of $J$ lying on the image of $X$ under an Abel--Jacobi map. We also give an explicit uniform bound on the number of geometric torsion points of $J$ lying on $X$ when the reduction type of $X$ is highly degenerate. Our methods combine Chabauty--Colemans $p$-adic integration, non-Archimedean potential theory on Berkovich curves, and the theory of linear systems and divisors on metric graphs.