Japan. J. Math. 4, 1–25 (2009) DOI: 10.1007/s11537-009-0852-x Holonomic -modules and positive characteristic Maxim Kontsevich Received: 8 December 2008 / Revised: 6 January 2009 / Accepted: 11 February 2009 Published online: ????? c The Mathematical Society of Japan and Springer 2009 Communicated by: Toshiyuki Kobayashi Abstract. We discuss a hypothetical correspondence between holonomic -modules on an al- gebraic variety X defined over a field of zero characteristic, and certain families of Lagrangian subvarieties in the cotangent bundle to X. The correspondence is based on the reduction to posi- tive characteristic. Keywords and phrases: rings of differential operators and their modules, characteristic p methods Mathematics Subject Classification (2000): 13N10, 13A35 1. Quantization and -modules 1.1. Quantization Let us recall the heuristic dictionary of quantization. symplectic C∞-manifold (Y,ω) ←→ complex Hilbert space H complex-valued functions on Y ←→ operators in H Lagrangian submanifolds L ⊂ Y ←→ vectors v ∈ H In the basic example of the cotangent bundle Y = T ∗X the space H is L2(X), functions on Y which are polynomial along fibers of the projection Y = T ∗X → X correspond to differential operators, and with the Lagrangian manifold L ⊂ Y This article is based on the 5th Takagi Lectures that the author delivered at the University of Tokyo on October 4 and 5, 2008. M. KONTSEVICH Institut des Hautes Etudes´ Scientifiques, 35 route de Chartres, Bures-sur-Yvette 91440, France (e-mail:
[email protected]) 2 M. Kontsevich of the form L = graphdF for some function F ∈ C∞(Y) we associate (approxi- mately) vector exp(iF/) where → 0 is a small parameter (“Planck constant”).