On the birational section conjecture with local conditions (Q2514523)

The paper under review deals with fundamental groups of hyperbolic curves over a number field \(k\). These are extensions of the absolute Galois group of \(k\) by the geometric fundamental group. It is conjectured that conjugacy classes of splittings of this extension correspond to \(k\)-rational points on a compactification. Birational sections lift to the absolute Galois group of the function field and are known to yield adelic points of the compactification. In the present paper it is shown that over the rationals or over quadratic imaginary basefields \(k\) all birational sections come from \(k\)-points on the compactification. For general \(k\) an integrality statements is shown for a set of \(k\)-places of density one. The proof uses \(l\)-adic representations coming from families of elliptic curvers over \(X\). These are indeed from the Legendre curve via maps to the projective line minus three points. Many of those exist by Belyi's theorem.