Variétés rationnelles

I will sketch the proof that every connected affine scheme in positivecharacteristic is a K(pi,1) space for the etale topology. The keytechnical ingredient is a ?RoeBertini-type?R statement regarding the wildramification of l-adic local systems on affine spaces. Its proof usesin an essential way recent advances in higher ramification theory dueto T. Saito.

For a nice algebraic variety X over a number field F, one of the central problems of Diophantine Geometry is to locate precisely the set X(F) inside X(A), where A denotes the ring of adèles of F. One approach to this problem is provided by the finite descent obstruction, which is defined to be the set of adelic points which can be lifted to twists of torsors for finite étale group schemes over F on X. More recently, Kim proposed an iterative construction of another subset of X(A) which contains […]