Tate's Conjecture, Algebraic Cycles and Rational K-Theory in Characteristic p

The purpose of this article is to discuss conjectures on motives, algebraic cycles and K-theory of smooth projective varieties over finite fields. We give a characterization of Tate's conjecture in terms of motives and their Frobenius endomorphism. This is used to prove that if Tate's conjecture holds and rational and numerical equivalence over finite fields agree, then higher rational K-groups of smooth projective varieties over finite fields vanish (Parshin's conjecture). Parshin's conjecture in turn implies a conjecture of Beilinson and Kahn giving bounds on rational K-groups of fields in finite characteristic. We derive further consequences from this result.