Torsion in the cohomology of desingularized fiber products of elliptic surfaces (Q1951494)

This paper gives a systematic and comprehensive study of the torsion part \(H^3(W,\mathbb{Z}_l)_{\text{tors}}\) in the étale cohomology of certain smooth threefolds \(W\) over an algebraically closed ground field \(k\) of characteristic \(p>0\). The threefolds in question are obtained as a desingularized fiber product of two Jacobian elliptic surfaces \(Y,Y'\) over some projective curve \(X\). Fibers of additive type are also allowed, but the following condition is imposed: For each point \(x\in X\) in the curve over which both fibers are singular, both fibers are of multiplicative type. In the earlier paper [Compos. Math. 145, No. 1, 89--111 (2009; Zbl 1163.14006)] all singular fibers were assumed to be of multiplicative type. The paper contains contains numerous results on the étale cohomology of such desingularized fiber products \(W\): First of all, torsion can appear only in degree \(i=3,4\), and there is no torsion at all if the generic fibers \(E,E'\) of the elliptic surface \(Y,Y'\) are isogenous. If there is an isogeny, however, the author gives an explicit description of the torsion as a subgroup \[ H^3(W,\mathbb{Z}_l)[l^n] \subset E[l^n]\otimes E'[l^n]^G \] of Galois invariant torsion points, defined in terms of local conditions at the places of bad reductions for \(E \), as well as \(E'\). From this, the author deduces that the possible torsion groups \(H^3(W,\mathbb{Z}_l)_{\text{tors}}\) are rather restricted: In any case, they are cyclic, and actually trivial if there is a place of additive reduction, or a place of common bad reduction. On the other hand, explicit examples are given that show that each cyclic group occurs as some \(H^3(W,\prod_{l\neq p}\mathbb{Z}_l)_{\text{tors}}\). Moreover, it is shown that each torsion class is the cycle class of some codimension two cycle of degree zero. The main parts of the proof consist of a careful analysis of the higher direct image sheaves in étale cohomology for the morphisms related to \(W\), and the corresponding Leray spectral sequences.