Tame coverings of arithmetic schemes. (Q5957314)

The objective of the paper is to investigate tame fundamental groups of schemes of finite type over Spec\((\mathbb{Z})\). More precisely, let \(X\) be a connected scheme of finite type over Spec\((\mathbb{Z})\) and let \(\bar X\) be a compactification of \(X\). Then the tame fundamental group of \(X\) classifies finite étale coverings of \(X\) which are tamely ramified along the boundary \(\bar X - X\), in particular, the tame fundamental group \(\pi_1^t(\bar X,\bar X -X)\) is a quotient of the étale fundamental group \(\pi_1(X)\). The first result (Theorem 1) of the paper says that the maximal pro-nilpotent quotient of the tame fundamental group \(\pi_1^t(\bar X,\bar X-X)^{\text{pro-nil}}\) is independent of the choice of the compactification \(\bar X\). Let \(\mathcal O\) be the ring of integers in a finite extension \(k\) of \(\mathbb{Q}\). Let \(\bar X\) be a normal flat \(\mathcal{O}\)-scheme of finite type whose geometric fibre \(\bar X\otimes_\mathcal{O}\bar k\) is connected and \(\bar X\to \text{Spec}(O)\) is surjective. The second result (Theorem 2) says that the abelianized tame fundamental group \(\pi_1^t(\bar X,\bar X -X)^{\text{ab}}\) is finite. In the special case \(\bar X=X\) it implies the finiteness of the étale fundamental group \(\pi_1(\bar X)^{\text{ab}}\) which sharpens a theorem of Katz and Lang by weaking the assumption `smooth' to normal.