Slice filtration on motives and the Hodge conjecture (with an appendix by J. Ayoub)

We clarify the expected properties of the slice filtration on triangulated motives from the point of view of the generalized Hodge conjecture. In the appendix, J. Ayoub proves unconditionally that the slice filtration does not respect geometric motives. (© 2008 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Equivariant cd-structures and descent theory

We construct the equivariant version of cd-structures, and we develop descent theory for topologies coming from equivariant cd-structures. In particular, we reprove several results of Cisinski–Déglies on étale descent, qfh-descent, and h-descent. Since the étale topos, qfh-topos, and h-topos do not come from usual cd-structures, such results cannot be produced by usual cd-structures. We also apply equivariant cd-structures to study several topologies on the category of noetherian fs log schemes.     

Schur-Finiteness and Endomorphisms Universally of Trace Zero Via Certain Trace Relations

We provide a sufficient condition that ensures the nilpotency of endomorphisms universally of trace zero of Schur-finite objects in a category of homological type, i.e., a ?-linear ?-category with a tensor functor to super vector spaces. This generalizes previous results about finite-dimensional objects, in particular by Kimura in the category of motives. We also present some facts which suggest that this might be the best generalization possible of this line of proof. To get the result we prove an identity of trace relations on super vector spaces which has an independent interest in the field of combinatorics. Our main tool is Berele–Regev's theory of Hook Schur functions. We use their generalization of the classic Schur–Weyl duality to the “super” case, together with their factorization formula.     

Noncommutative geometry and motives: The thermodynamics of endomotives

We combine aspects of the theory of motives in algebraic geometry with noncommutative geometry and the classification of factors to obtain a cohomological interpretation of the spectral realization of zeros of L-functions. The analogue in characteristic zero of the action of the Frobenius on ?-adic cohomology is the action of the scaling group on the cyclic homology of the cokernel (in a suitable category of motives) of a restriction map of noncommutative spaces. The latter is obtained through the thermodynamics of the quantum statistical system associated to an endomotive (a noncommutative generalization of Artin motives). Semigroups of endomorphisms of algebraic varieties give rise canonically to such endomotives, with an action of the absolute Galois group. The semigroup of endomorphisms of the multiplicative group yields the Bost-Connes system, from which one obtains, through the above procedure, the desired cohomological interpretation of the zeros of the Riemann zeta function. In the last section we also give a Lefschetz formula for the archimedean local L-factors of arithmetic varieties.     

String modular phases in Calabi–Yau families

We investigate the structure of singular Calabi–Yau varieties in moduli spaces that contain a Brieskorn–Pham point. Our main tool is a construction of families of deformed motives over the parameter space. We analyze these motives for general fibers and explicitly compute the L$L$-series for singular fibers for several families. We find that the resulting motivic L$L$-functions agree with the L$L$-series of modular forms whose weight depends both on the rank of the motive and the degree of the degeneration of the variety. Surprisingly, these motivic L$L$-functions are identical in several cases to L$L$-series derived from weighted Fermat hypersurfaces. This shows that singular Calabi–Yau spaces of non-conifold type can admit a string worldsheet interpretation, much like rational theories, and that the corresponding irrational conformal field theories inherit information from the Gepner conformal field theory of the weighted Fermat fiber of the family. These results suggest that phase transitions via non-conifold configurations are physically plausible. In the case of severe degenerations we find a dimensional transmutation of the motives. This suggests further that singular configurations with non-conifold singularities may facilitate transitions between Calabi–Yau varieties of different dimensions.     

Self-correspondences of the generic fibre of Lefschetz pencils and the Leray filtration

In this paper we give a detailed analysis of the interaction between homological self-correspondences of the general fibre Y/k(t) of the Lefschetz fibration of a Lefschetz pencil on a smooth projective variety X/k, and the Leray filtration of ρ. We derive the result that, if the standard conjecture B(Y) holds, then the operator is algebraic, where is defined as the inverse of L on LPn−1(X) and 0 on LkPj(X) for (1,n−1)≠(k,j); in the course of our proof we see that, under the above assumption, the Künneth projectors for i≠n−1,n,n+1 are algebraic.     

Sharp de Rham realization

We introduce the sharp (universal) extension of a 1-motive (with additive factors and torsion) over a field of characteristic zero. We define the sharp de Rham realization T by passing to the Lie-algebra. Over the complex numbers we then show a (sharp de Rham) comparison theorem in the category of formal Hodge structures. For a free 1-motive along with its Cartier dual we get a canonical connection on their sharp extensions yielding a perfect pairing on sharp realizations. Thus we show how to provide one-dimensional sharp de Rham cohomology of algebraic varieties.