Arithmetic representations of fundamental groups. I. (Q1989465)

By analyzing the Galois action on the étale fundamental group, the author studies continuous \(\ell\)-adic representations of the geometric fundamental group of a variety \(X\) over a field \(k\) \[\rho: \pi^{\text{ét}}_1(X_{\bar{k}},\bar{x}) \to \mathrm{GL}(\mathbb{Z}_{\ell}) \] which arise from geometry. Let \(X\) be a geometrically connected variety over a field \(k\), \(\bar{x}\) a geometric point, and \(\ell\) a prime. A representation \(\rho\) is arithmetic if it is a subquotient of a representation \[ \tilde{\rho}: \pi^{\text{ét}}_1(X_{k'},\bar{x}) \to \mathrm{GL}(\mathbb{Z}_{\ell}) \] where \(k'\) is a finite extension of \(k\). It is geometric if it is a subquotient of the monodromy representation \[ \pi^{\text{ét}}_1(X_{\bar{k}},\bar{x}) \to \mathrm{GL}((R^i\pi_*\underline{\mathbb{Z}_{\ell}})_{\bar{x}}) \] for some smooth proper morphism \(\pi: Y \to X\) and some integer \(i\geq 0\). Moreover, if \(X\) is normal and \(k\) is finitely generated of characteristic zero, the main theorems claim that there exists a positive integer \(N=N(X,\ell)\) such that any arithmetic (resp. geometric) representation which is trivial mod \(\ell^N\) is unipotent (resp. trivial). The strategy to study the action of \(\mathrm{Gal}(\bar{k}/k)\) on \(\pi^{\text{ét}}_1(X_{\bar{k}},\bar{x})\) is anabelian methods, and these technical results are the main ingredients of the proof. For Part II, see [the author, Duke Math. J. 170, No. 8, 1851-1897 (2021; Zbl 07369863)].