Motivic Homotopy Theory

This book is based on lectures given at a summer school on motivic homotopy theory at the Sophus Lie Centre in Nordfjordeid, Norway, in August 2002. Aimed at graduate students in algebraic topology and algebraic geometry, it contains background material from both of these fields, as well as the foundations of motivic homotopy theory. It will serve as a good introduction as well as a convenient reference for a broad group of mathematicians to this important and fascinating new subject. Vladimir Voevodsky is one of the founders of the theory and received the Fields medal for his work, and the other authors have all done important work in the subject.

This book provides an introduction to state-of-the-art applications of homotopy theory to arithmetic geometry. The contributions to this volume are based on original lectures by leading researchers at the LMS-CMI Research School on ‘Homotopy Theory and Arithmetic Geometry - Motivic and Diophantine Aspects’ and the Nelder Fellow Lecturer Series, which both took place at Imperial College London in the summer of 2018. The contribution by Brazelton, based on the lectures by Wickelgren, provides an introduction to arithmetic enumerative geometry, the notes of Cisinski present motivic sheaves and new cohomological methods for intersection theory, and Schlank’s contribution gives an overview of the use of étale homotopy theory for obstructions to the existence of rational points on algebraic varieties. Finally, the article by Asok and Østvær, based in part on the Nelder Fellow lecture series by Østvær, gives a survey of the interplay between motivic homotopy theory and affine algebraic geometry, with a focus on contractible algebraic varieties. Now a major trend in arithmetic geometry, this volume offers a detailed guide to the fascinating circle of recent applications of homotopy theory to number theory. It will be invaluable to research students entering the field, as well as postdoctoral and more established researchers.

This text deals with A1-homotopy theory over a base field, i.e., with the natural homotopy theory associated to the category of smooth varieties over a field in which the affine line is imposed to be contractible. It is a natural sequel to the foundational paper on A1-homotopy theory written together with V. Voevodsky. Inspired by classical results in algebraic topology, we present new techniques, new results and applications related to the properties and computations of A1-homotopy sheaves, A1-homology sheaves, and sheaves with generalized transfers, as well as to algebraic vector bundles over affine smooth varieties.

The notion of a motive is an elusive one, like its namesake "the motif" of Cezanne's impressionist method of painting. Its existence was first suggested by Grothendieck in 1964 as the underlying structure behind the myriad cohomology theories in Algebraic Geometry. We now know that there is a triangulated theory of motives, discovered by Vladimir Voevodsky, which suffices for the development of a satisfactory Motivic Cohomology theory. However, the existence of motives themselves remains conjectural. This book provides an account of the triangulated theory of motives. Its purpose is to introduce Motivic Cohomology, to develop its main properties, and finally to relate it to other known invariants of algebraic varieties and rings such as Milnor K-theory, etale cohomology, and Chow groups. The book is divided into lectures, grouped in six parts. The first part presents the definition of Motivic Cohomology, based upon the notion of presheaves with transfers. Some elementary comparison theorems are given in this part. The theory of (etale, Nisnevich, and Zariski) sheaves with transfers is developed in parts two, three, and six, respectively. The theoretical core of the book is the fourth part, presenting the triangulated category of motives. Finally, the comparison with higher Chow groups is developed in part five. The lecture notes format is designed for the book to be read by an advanced graduate student or an expert in a related field. The lectures roughly correspond to one-hour lectures given by Voevodsky during the course he gave at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton on this subject in 1999-2000. In addition, many of the original proofs have been simplified and improved so that this book will also be a useful tool for research mathematicians. Information for our distributors: Titles in this series are copublished with the Clay Mathematics Institute (Cambridge, MA).

The NATO Advanced Study Institute "Axiomatic, enriched and rna tivic homotopy theory" took place at the Isaac Newton Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Cambridge, England during 9-20 September 2002. The Directors were J.P.C.Greenlees and I.Zhukov; the other or ganizers were P.G.Goerss, F.Morel, J.F.Jardine and V.P.Snaith. The title describes the content well, and both the event and the contents of the present volume reflect recent remarkable successes in model categor ies, structured ring spectra and homotopy theory of algebraic geometry. The ASI took the form of a series of 15 minicourses and a few extra lectures, and was designed to provide background, and to bring the par ticipants up to date with developments. The present volume is based on a number of the lectures given during the workshop. The ASI was the opening workshop of the four month programme "New Contexts for Stable Homotopy Theory" which explored several themes in greater depth. I am grateful to the Isaac Newton Institute for providing such an ideal venue, the NATO Science Committee for their funding, and to all the speakers at the conference, whether or not they were able to contribute to the present volume. All contributions were refereed, and I thank the authors and referees for their efforts to fit in with the tight schedule. Finally, I would like to thank my coorganizers and all the staff at the Institute for making the ASI run so smoothly. J.P.C.GREENLEES.

The original goal that ultimately led to this volume was the construction of "motivic cohomology theory," whose existence was conjectured by A. Beilinson and S. Lichtenbaum. This is achieved in the book's fourth paper, using results of the other papers whose additional role is to contribute to our understanding of various properties of algebraic cycles. The material presented provides the foundations for the recent proof of the celebrated "Milnor Conjecture" by Vladimir Voevodsky. The theory of sheaves of relative cycles is developed in the first paper of this volume. The theory of presheaves with transfers and more specifically homotopy invariant presheaves with transfers is the main theme of the second paper. The Friedlander-Lawson moving lemma for families of algebraic cycles appears in the third paper in which a bivariant theory called bivariant cycle cohomology is constructed. The fifth and last paper in the volume gives a proof of the fact that bivariant cycle cohomology groups are canonically isomorphic (in appropriate cases) to Bloch's higher Chow groups, thereby providing a link between the authors' theory and Bloch's original approach to motivic (co-)homology.

This book is based on lectures given at a summer school on motivic homotopy theory at the Sophus Lie Centre in Nordfjordeid, Norway, in August 2002. Aimed at graduate students in algebraic topology and algebraic geometry, it contains background material from both of these fields, as well as the foundations of motivic homotopy theory. It will serve as a good introduction as well as a convenient reference for a broad group of mathematicians to this important and fascinating new subject. Vladimir Voevodsky is one of the founders of the theory and received the Fields medal for his work, and the other authors have all done important work in the subject.

In this text, the author presents a general framework for applying the standard methods from homotopy theory to the category of smooth schemes over a reasonable base scheme $k$. He defines the homotopy category $h(\mathcal{E} k)$ of smooth $k$-schemes and shows that it plays the same role for smooth $k$-schemes as the classical homotopy category plays for differentiable varieties. It is shown that certain expected properties are satisfied, for example, concerning the algebraic$K$-theory of those schemes. In this way, advanced methods of algebraic topology become available in modern algebraic geometry.