Grothendieck groups of bundles on varieties over finite fields (Q5948618)

This paper is devoted to the study of categories of vector bundles over ringed spaces \((X,\mathcal A)\), where \(X\) is an irreducible projective variety over a finite field \(k\). In particular, the authors analyze the case in which \(X\) is a curve and the sheaf \(\mathcal A\) of rings is given by \(\mathcal A(U)=\mathcal O(U)[G]\), where \(\mathcal O\) denotes the structure sheaf of \(X\) and \(G\) is a finite group. The authors start by proving basic facts on sheaves of algebras, radicals, the Wedderburn decomposition, and isotriviality. Next given a coherent sheaf \(\mathcal A\) of algebras on \(X\), various categories of \(\mathcal A\)-bundles on \(X\) are introduced, and the class group \(\text{Cl}^{lf}(\mathcal A)\) of locally free \(\mathcal A\)-bundles is studied. If \(X\) is a curve, then for commutative \(\mathcal A\) it is shown that \(\text{Cl}^{lf}(\mathcal A)\) is isomorphic to the Picard group, while for a sheaf \(\mathcal A\) of orders a version of Quillen localization is proved. Assuming that \(\mathcal A\) is a sheaf of orders, the authors next study a natural filtration on the Grothendieck group of locally free \(\mathcal A\)-bundles over \(X\). They next derive and study an idelic description of \(\text{Cl}^{lf}(\mathcal A)\) in the case that \(X\) is a curve. The theory developed so far is then applied to study the case \(\mathcal A=\mathcal O[G]\) for a finite group \(G\) whose order is not divisible by the characteristic \(p\) of \(k\). Finally, the authors study the case \(\mathcal A=\mathcal O[G]\) for a cyclic group \(G\) of order \(p^n\) for some \(n>0\). They describe the Picard group in terms of Witt vectors and characterize those elements of the class group which may be realized by unramified \(G\)-covers.