Shorter Notes: Profinite Groups are Galois Groups

This meeting was focused on asymptotic aspects of group theory. The resulting problems lead, in particular, to the study of infinite groups, with an emphasis on the asymptotic behaviour of their finite quotients. Also, properties of infinite families of finite groups are at the center of interest in the field. We had talks on the most important recent developments in the field of asymptotic and profinite group theory. We single out some of these new results. The classification of finite simple groups has provided an impetus for the detailed investigation of properties of families of groups of Lie type and of alternating groups. This has produced many results of asymptotic or probabilistic nature, describing in a quantitative way properties that hold for all sufficiently large simple groups, or else that hold ‘almost surely’ as the orders of the groups are tending to infinity. Here we had a talk of Aner Shalev on his recent solution (with coauthors) of Ore's conjecture. Recently there has been much activity in the study of infinite groups, with an emphasis on the asymptotic behaviour of their finite quotients, or their finite-index subgroups. The theory of subgroup growth is now well established; the theory of the associated zeta functions is making good progress. More subtle variations of subgroup growth are also developing into significant theories in their own right: there are important new results on representation growth – of arithmetic groups, nilpotent groups and pro-p groups; and on maximal subgroup growth, with applications to probabilistic generation properties. Profinite groups are ‘asymptotic limits’ of finite groups. The nature of verbal subgroups and verbal mappings, in both finite and profinite groups, has been the focus of much recent work. This has led among other things to the solution of Serre's problem on subgroups of finite index in finitely generated profinite groups; other significant results include the characterisation of closed verbal subgroups in pro-p groups and new characterisations of solubility in finite groups. Branch groups, both discrete and profinite, are certain groups of automorphisms of rooted trees; introduced by Grigorchuk and others over 20 years ago, they have provided the solution to several outstanding problems, and their study continues to provide new results. Some of them were reported on in our meeting. We also had talks from important fields of mathematics in which profinite and asymptotic group theory finds application. There is, for instance, the study of the absolute Galois group of the rationals and in particular its closed pro-p subgroups. Methods from pro-p group theory have successfully been applied in order to understand fundamental groups of (hyperbolic) 3-manifolds. The interplay between the topological fundamental group of a complex algebraic surface and its profinite completion which is the etale fundamental group of the surface is the subject of recent research. We believe that the meeting was exciting and successful. The high quality lectures covered a lot of very recent results in the field. There were many intense discussions between mathematicians of different fields. Altogether there were over 50 participants from all over the world. The percentage of young researchers was very high. The following extended abstracts were collected and edited by Dr. Evija Ribnere.

We now apply the cohomology theory of the previous chapter to the study of the Brauer group. However, we shall have to use a slightly modified construction which takes into account the fact that the absolute Galois group of a field is determined by its finite quotients. This is the cohomology theory of profinite groups, which we develop first. As a fruit of our labours, we identify the Brauer group of a field with a second, this time commutative, cohomology group of the absolute Galois group. As applications, we obtain easy proofs of some basic facts concerning the Brauer group, and give an important characterization of the index of a central simple algebra. Last but not least, one of the main objects of study in this book makes its appearance: the Galois symbol. The cohomology theory of profinite groups was introduced in the late 1950s by John Tate, motivated by sheaf-theoretic considerations of Alexander Grothendieck. His original aim was to find the appropriate formalism for developing class field theory. Tate himself never published his work, which thus became accessible to the larger mathematical community through the famous account of Serre [4], which also contains many original contributions. It was Brauer himself who described the Brauer group as a second cohomology group, using his language of factor systems. We owe to Serre the insight that descent theory can be used to give a more conceptual proof. The Galois symbol was defined by Tate in connection with the algebraic theory of power residue symbols, a topic extensively studied in the 1960s by Bass, Milnor, Moore, Serre and others. Profinite groups and Galois groups It can be no surprise that the main application of the cohomological techniques of the previous chapter will be in the case when G is the Galois group of a finite Galois extension. However, it will be convenient to consider the case of infinite Galois extensions as well, and first and foremost that of the extension k s |k , where k s is a separable closure of k .

Separable algebraic closure in a topos

A group will be called full if it is the Galois group of an algebraic closure of a field. In this paper we first investigate full Abelian groups and classify them. Then we examine full groups from the point of view of how we can operate on them and still maintain the property of being full. Of course, by the fundamental theorem of the infinite Galois theory, closed subgroups (with standard profinite topology) of full groups are full. In general, products of full groups are notfull (for example, Z2 × Z2 is not full, by a theorem of Artin and Schreier (1927)); however we produce a set of groups which can always be attached as direct factors to full groups and still retain full groups. For the definition and basic properties of profinite groups we refer the reader to Cassels and Frohlich (1967). It has been shown by Leptin (1955) and independently by the author that profinite groups are Galois groups. The author (1971) has shown that if G is profinite, then G = Gdl(k/L) where L may have any desired characteristic and contains all primitive nth roots of unity, for all n. We will denote by p the pro-p-group which is the inverse limit of cyclic p-groups. (This is the group of p-adic integers).

This paper's goal is to determine which complete theories of perfect, e-free Ax fields are model-complete. A field K is e-free for a positive integer e if the Galois group g(KS∣K), where Ks is the separable closure of K, is an e-free, profinite group. A perfect field K is pseudo-algebraically closed if each nonvoid, absolutely irreducible variety defined over K has a K-rational point. A perfect, pseudo-algebraically closed field is called an Ax field. The main theorem isA complete theory of e-free Ax fields is model-complete if and only if its field of absolute numbers is e-free.The sufficiency of the latter condition is an easy consequence of a result of Moshe Jarden and Ursel Kiehne [10] and has been noted independently by A. Macintyre and K. McKenna and undoubtedly by others as well. Consequently the necessity of the latter condition is the interesting part of this paper.James Ax [3] initiated the investigation of 1-free Ax fields. He proved that these fields, which he called pseudo-finite fields, are precisely the infinite models of the theory of finite fields. He [3] also presented examples of perfect, 1-free fields which are not pseudo-algebraically closed and an example of a 1-free Ax field whose complete theory is not model-complete. Moshe Jarden [5] showed that the first examples are isolated cases in that almost all, perfect, 1-free, algebraic extensions of a denumerable, Hilbertian field are pseudo-algebraically closed. The results in this paper show that the second example is also an isolated case in that almost all complete theories of 1-free Ax fields are model-complete.

A profinite group G is said to have cohomological dimension at most n if Hr (G, A) is zero for all r > n and all discrete Z-torsion G-modules A. The groups of co omological dimension at most 1 are just the projective groups. Among other important groups which have finite cohomological dimension are the torsion-free profinite groups of finite rank and certain Galois groups Gal (K/k), where K is either a separable closure of k or the subfield of a separable closure generated by all finite Galois extensions of p-power degree.

In this chapter we introduce the differential module for a group homomorphism and show the Crowell exact sequence associated to a short exact sequence of groups. Applying these constructions to the Abelianization map of a link group, we obtain the Alexander module of a link and the exact sequence relating the Alexander module with the link module. We then discuss analogous constructions for pro-finite (pro-l) groups to obtain the complete differential module and the complete Crowell exact sequence. Applying these constructions to a homomorphism from a Galois group with restricted ramification, we obtain the complete Alexander module for primes and the exact sequence relationg the complete Alexander module with a Galois (Iwasawa) module.

In this paper, we prove that the etale fundamental group of a hyperbolic curve over an arithmetic field [e.g., a finite extension field of Q or Qp] or an algebraically closed field is indecomposable [i.e., cannot be decomposed into the direct product of nontrivial profinite groups]. Moreover, in the case of characteristic zero, we also prove that the etale fundamental group of the configuration space of a curve of the above type is indecomposable. Finally, we consider the topic of indecomposability in the context of the comparison of the absolute Galois group of Q with the Grothendieck-Teichmuller group GT and pose the question: Is GT indecomposable? We give an affirmative answer to a pro-l version of this question

In this paper, we consider minimal equicontinuous actions of discrete countably generated groups on Cantor sets, obtained from the arboreal representations of absolute Galois groups of fields. In particular, we study the asymptotic discriminant of these actions. The asymptotic discriminant is an invariant obtained by restricting the action to a sequence of nested clopen sets, and studying the isotropies of the enveloping group actions in such restricted systems. An enveloping (Ellis) group of such an action is a profinite group. A large class of actions of profinite groups on Cantor sets is given by arboreal representations of absolute Galois groups of fields. We show how to associate to an arboreal representation an action of a discrete group, and give examples of arboreal representations with stable and wild asymptotic discriminant.

Let be a prime number, let be a profinite group, let be a continuous character, and for all write for the twist of by the ‐action. Suppose that satisfies a formal version of Hilbert's Theorem 90: for all open subgroups and every , the map is surjective. We show that the Massey Vanishing Conjecture for triple Massey products and some degenerate fourfold Massey products holds for . A key step in our proof is the construction of a Hilbert 90 module for : a discrete ‐module that plays the role of the Galois module for the absolute Galois group of a field of characteristic different from .

The following theorem is proved: Let T be an uncountable set of algebraically independent elements over a field Ko. Then K = KO(T) is a Hilbertian field but the set of a E G( K) for which K(a) is PAC is nonmeasurable. Introduction. A field M is said to be pseudo algebraically closed (= PAC) if every nonempty absolutely irreducible variety V defined over M has an M-rational point. If M is an algebraic extension of a field K and every absolutely irreducible polynomial f E K [ X, Y], separable in Y, has infinitely many M-rational zeros, then M is PAC. This is a combination of Ax's application of descent [1] and the generic hyperplane intersection method as in Frey [3]. If a,,...,ae are e-elements of the absolute Galois group G(K) of K, then K(a) denotes the fixed field in K of a1,. . . ,0e. Here K is the algebraic closure of K. We denote by 4 the normalized Haar measure of G(K )e. It is proved in [6, Lemma 2.4] that if K is a Hilbertian field, if f E K[X, Y] is an absolutely irreducible polynomial and if A(f) = (a E G(K)e If has a K(a)-zero), then u(A(f )) = 1. If in addition K is countable, then there are only countably many f 's and therefore the intersection of all the A( f )'s is also a set of measure 1. Thus the set Se(K) = (a E G(K )e I K(a) is PAC} has measure 1. This basic result, which is called the Nullstellensatz in [6], has been the cornerstone for several model theoretic investigations of the fields K( a) (cf. [9, 7 and 4]). If K is uncountable, then the above argument is not valid any more. It is our aim in this note to show that indeed the Nullstellensatz itself is not true in this case. More precisely, we prove THEOREM. Let T be an uncountable set of algebraically independent elements over a field Ko. Then K = KO T) is a Hilbertian field but Se( K) is a nonmeasurable subset of G( K )e for every positive integer e. 1. The Haar measure of a profinite group. Let G be a profinite group and consider the boolean algebra of open-closed sets in G. They are finite unions of left cosets xN, where N are open normal subgroups. The a-algebra generated by the open-closed sets is denoted by 6J0. Every open subset of G is a union of open-closed sets. We Received by the editors Februarv 5. 1982 and, in revised form, May 27, 1982. 1980 Mathematics Subject Clavsificcation. Primary 1 2F20. Kev words and phrases. PAC fields, Hilbertian fields, Haar measure. ' Partially supported by the Fund for Basic Research administered by the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities. i) 1983 American Mathematical Society 0002-9939/82/0000-0592/$02. 50

A field K is regularly closed if every absolutely irreducible affine variety defined over K has K-rational points. This notion was first isolated by Ax [A] in his work on the elementary theory of finite fields. Later Jarden [J2] and Jarden and Kiehne [JK] extended this in different directions. One of the primary results in this area is that the elementary properties of a regularly closed field K with a free Galois group (on either finitely or countably many generators) are determined by the set of integer polynomials in one indeterminate with a zero in K. The method of proof employed in [J1], [J2] and [JK] is unusual for algebra since it is a measure-theoretic argument. In this brief summary we have not made any attempt at completeness. We refer the reader to the recent paper of Cherlin, van den Dries, and Macintyre [CDM] and to the forthcoming book by Fried and Jarden [FJ] for a more thorough discussion of the latest results. We would like to thank Moshe Jarden, Angus Macintyre, and Zoe Chatzidakis for their comments on an earlier version of this paper.A countable field K is ω-free if the absolute Galois group , where is the algebraic closure of K and is the free profinite group on ℵ0 generators.

We study profinite completion of spaces in the model category of profinite spaces and construct a rigidification of the completion functors of Artin-Mazur and Sullivan which extends also to non-connected spaces. Another new aspect is an equivariant profinite completion functor and equivariant fibrant replacement functor for a profinite group acting on a space. This is crucial for applications where, for example, Galois groups are involved, or for profinite Teichmuller theory where equivariant completions are applied. Along the way we collect and survey the most important known results of Artin-Mazur, Sullivan and Rector about profinite completion of spaces from a modern point of view. So this article is in part of expository nature.

A theorem of Douady says that the absolute Galois group of a rational function field F(x) in one variable over an algebraically closed field F of characteristic 0 is a free profinite group. A new method is proposed to extend Douady’s theorem from the case of the complex number field F = ℂ to the case of an arbitrary field.

Let K be a field of characteristic 0 and t an indeterminate. It is shown that the absolute Galois group of K(t) is the semi-direct product of a free profinite group with the absolute Galois group of K.