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Galois representation
Contents Context
Representation theory
1. Idea
2. Continuous Galois representations
3. Examples
4. p-adic Galois representations
5. Conjectures on Galois Representations
Fontaine-Mazur Conjecture
Langlands Correspondence
Serre’s Modularity Conjecture
6. Related concepts
7. References

1. Idea
A Galois representation is a linear representation of a Galois group (often the absolute Galois
group of some field). In other words, given a field extension 𝐸 of 𝐹, and a vector space 𝑉 over
some field 𝑘, a Galois representation 𝜌 is a group homomorphism

𝜌: Gal (𝐸 / 𝐹) → GL (𝑉)

where GL (𝑉) is the group of linear transformations of 𝑉. If 𝑉 is an 𝑛-dimensional vector space,

GL (𝑉) is the same as the general linear group GL𝑛 (𝑘). A Galois module is a generalization of a
Galois representation to modules instead of vector spaces.

2. Continuous Galois representations

When the Galois group is the absolute Galois group of a number field or a finite extension of the
p-adic numbers, and the field of scalars of the underlying vector space of the representation is a
topological field, one often considers continuous Galois representations (noting that the
absolute Galois group is a topological group).

3. Examples
An example of a continuous Galois representation can be obtained by taking the ℓ-adic Tate
module as discussed in the article on Galois modules and taking its tensor product with ℚℓ .

4. p-adic Galois representations

Continuous Galois representations of Gal(𝐹 ¯ / 𝐹), where 𝐹 is a finite extension of the p-adic
numbers ℚ𝑝 , over an underlying vector space over 𝐸, where 𝐸 is another extension of ℚ𝑝
(often with some condition that 𝐸 is big enough) are called p-adic Galois representations (in
contrast to ℓ-adic Galois representations, where the underlying vector space is over some
extension of ℚℓ , where ℓ is another prime not equal to 𝑝). p-adic Galois representations have a
very rich theory (significantly richer and more complicated than ℓ-adic Galois representations),
and their study is part of p-adic Hodge theory.
5. Conjectures on Galois Representations
Fontaine-Mazur Conjecture
The Fontaine-Mazur conjecture gives a criterion for when an ℓ-adic Galois representation
“comes from geometry”, i.e. is obtained from the ℓ-adic etale cohomology of a variety. Namely, a
Galois representation comes from geometry if and only if it is unramified at almost all places,
and de Rham (see p-adic Hodge theory) at the places over ℓ (LiLFunctions).

Langlands Correspondence
A restricted version of the global Langlands correspondence (BuzzardMSRI) for GL𝑛 states that
algebraic automorphic representations of GL𝑛 over ℚ are in bijection with compatible systems
of ℓ-adic Galois representations. A more general form is conjectured for number fields instead
of ℚ.

The local Langlands correspondence for GL𝑛 states that irreducible admissible representations
of GL𝑛 (ℚ𝑝 ) are in correspondence with F-semisimple Weil-Deligne representations of
Gal (ℚ¯𝑝 / ℚ𝑝 ). This has been proved. A more general form is also true for more general local
fields instead of ℚ𝑝 .

For reductive groups other than GL𝑛 , Galois representations need to be replaced by the more
general concept of L-parameters (and the statement becomes a classification, in terms of a
partition into L-packets, rather than a bijection).

Serre’s Modularity Conjecture

Serre’s modularity conjecture states that an odd (this means the image of complex conjugation
has determinant −1) irreducible two-dimensional Galois representation over a finite field comes
from a modular form, and furthermore (in its strong form) gives a recipe for the level and
weight of the modular form as well. This conjecture was proved by Khare and Wintenberger in
KhareWintenberger09a and KhareWintenberger09b.

Modern formulations of the weight part of Serre’s conjecture are stated differently, inspired by
the observation by Ash and Stevens (AshStevens86) that a Galois representation over a finite
field is modular of prime-to-𝑝 level 𝑁 and weight 𝑘 if and only if the corresponding system of
Hecke eigenvalues appears in the group cohomology 𝐻1 (𝛤(𝑁), Sym𝑘 − 2 𝔽 ¯ 2 ). This is the same
𝑝
as requiring that the system of Hecke eigenvalues appears in 𝐻1 (𝛤(𝑁), 𝑉), where 𝑉 is a
¯ 2.
Jordan-Holder factor of Sym𝑘 − 2 𝔽 𝑝

Therefore, modern formulations of the weight part of Serre’s conjecture consists of associating
¯
to a Galois representation over a finite field 𝔽𝑝 a set of Serre weights, which are irreducible 𝔽 𝑝
representations of GL2 (𝔽𝑝 ) (there are also generalizations to other groups). See also GHS18
for more discussion of this point of view.

6. Related concepts
class field theory
etale cohomology
Galois cohomology
p-adic Hodge theory
Langlands correspondence

7. References
Richard Taylor, Galois representations (pdf)

In the context of the Langlands program:

 Kevin Buzzard, MSRI Summer School on automorphic forms (web)

The statement of the Fontaine-Mazur conjecture as stated in this article comes from

Chao Li, Arithmetic of L-Functions (notes taken by Pak-Hin Lee) (pdf)

The proof of Serre’s modularity conjecture is given in

Khare, Chandrashekhar; Wintenberger, Jean-Pierre (2009), Serre’s modularity conjecture

(I), Inventiones Mathematicae, 178 (3): 485–504
Khare, Chandrashekhar; Wintenberger, Jean-Pierre (2009), “Serre’s modularity conjecture
(II)”, Inventiones Mathematicae, 178 (3): 505–586

The modern formulation of the weight part of Serre’s conjecture is discussed in

Toby Gee, Florian Herzig, David Savitt, General Serre Weight Conjectures, J. Eur. Math.
Soc. 20 (2018), no. 12, 2859-2949 (arXiv:1509.02527)

The historical inspiration for the previous entry can be found in

Avner Ash and Glenn Stevens, Modular forms in characteristic l and special values of their
L-functions, Duke Math. J. 53 (1986), no. 3, 849–868.

Review of the fact that Galois representations encode local systems are are hence analogs in
arithmetic geometry of flat connections in differential geometry includes

Tom Lovering, Étale cohomology and Galois Representations, 2012 (pdf)

See also at function field analogy.

Last revised on December 1, 2022 at 04:01:00. See the history of this page for a list of all contributions to it.

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