Algebraic K-theory, algebraic cycles and arithmetic geometry Bruno Kahn Institut de Math´ematiquesde Jussieu 175{179 rue du Chevaleret 75013 Paris France
[email protected] Introduction Warning: This paper is full of conjectures. If you are allergic to them it may be harmful to your health. Parts of them are proven, though. In algebraic geometry, one encounters two important kinds of objects: vec- tor bundles and algebraic cycles. The first lead to algebraic K-theory while the second lead to motivic cohomology. They are related via the Chern character and Atiyah-Hirzebruch-like spectral sequences. Vector bundles and algebraic cycles offer very different features. On the one hand, it is often more powerful and easier to work with vector bundles: for example Quillen's localisation theorem in algebraic K-theory is consider- ably easier to prove than the corresponding localisation theorem of Bloch for higher Chow groups. In short, no moving lemmas are needed to handle vector bundles. In appropriate cases they can be classified by moduli spaces, which underlies the proof of finiteness theorems like Tate's theorem [189] and Falt- ings' proof of the Mordell conjecture, or Quillen's finite generation theorem for K-groups of curves over a finite field [66]. They also have a better functo- riality than algebraic cycles, and this has been used for example by Takeshi Saito in [163, Proof of Lemma 2.4.2] to establish functoriality properties of the weight spectral sequences for smooth projective varieties over Qp. On the other hand, it is fundamental to work with motivic cohomology: as E2-terms of a spectral sequence converging to K-theory, the groups involved contain finer torsion information than algebraic K-groups (see Remark 2.2.2), they appear naturally as Hom groups in triangulated categories of motives and they appear naturally, rather than K-groups, in the arithmetic conjectures of Lichtenbaum on special values of zeta functions.