Tag: Kapranov

Who dreamed up the primes=knots analogy?

Published May 16, 2011 by lieven

One of the more surprising analogies around is that prime numbers can be viewed as knots in the 3-sphere $S^3$. The motivation behind it is that the (etale) fundamental group of $\pmb{spec}(\mathbb{Z}/(p))$ is equal to (the completion) of the fundamental group of a circle $S^1$ and that the embedding

$\pmb{spec}(\mathbb{Z}/(p)) \subset \pmb{spec}(\mathbb{Z})$

embeds this circle as a knot in a 3-dimensional simply connected manifold which, after Perelman, has to be $S^3$. For more see the what is the knot associated to a prime?-post.

In recent months new evidence has come to light allowing us to settle the genesis of this marvelous idea.

1. The former consensus

Until now, the generally accepted view (see for example the ‘Mazur-dictionary-post’ or Morishita’s expository paper) was that the analogy between knots and primes was first pointed out by Barry Mazur in the middle of the 1960’s when preparing for his lectures at the Summer Conference on Algebraic Geometry, at Bowdoin, in 1966. The lecture notes where later published in 1973 in the Annales of the ENS as ‘Notes on etale cohomology of number fields’.

For further use in this series of posts, please note the acknowledgement at the bottom of the first page, reproduced below : “It gives me pleasure to thank J.-P. Serre for his vigorous editing and his suggestions and corrections, which led to this revised version.”

Independently, Yuri I. Manin spotted the same analogy at around the same time. However, this point of view was quickly forgotten in favor of the more classical one of viewing number fields as analogous to algebraic function fields of one variable. Subsequently, in the mid 1990’s Mikhail Kapranov and Alexander Reznikov took up the analogy between number fields and 3-manifolds again, and called the resulting study arithmetic topology.

2. The new evidence

On december 13th 2010, David Feldman posted a MathOverflow-question Mazur’s unpublished manuscript on primes and knots?. He wrote : “The story of the analogy between knots and primes, which now has a literature, started with an unpublished note by Barry Mazur. I’m not absolutely sure this is the one I mean, but in his paper, Analogies between group actions on 3-manifolds and number fields, Adam Sikora cites B. Mazur, Remarks on the Alexander polynomial, unpublished notes.“

Two months later, on february 15th David Feldman suddenly found the missing preprint in his mail-box and made it available. The preprint is now also available from Barry Mazur’s website. Mazur adds the following comment :

“In 1963 or 1964 I wrote an article Remarks on the Alexander Polynomial [PDF] about the analogy between knots in the three-dimensional sphere and prime numbers (and, correspondingly, the relationship between the Alexander polynomial and Iwasawa Theory). I distributed some copies of my article but never published it, and I misplaced my own copy. In subsequent years I have had many requests for my article and would often try to search through my files to find it, but never did. A few weeks ago Minh-Tri Do asked me for my article, and when I said I had none, he very kindly went on the web and magically found a scanned copy of it. I’m extremely grateful to Minh-Tri Do for his efforts (and many thanks, too, to David Feldman who provided the lead).”

The opening paragraph of this unpublished preprint contains a major surprise!

Mazur points to David Mumford as the originator of the ‘primes-are-knots’ idea : “Mumford has suggested a most elegant model as a geometric interpretation of the above situation : $\pmb{spec}(\mathbb{Z}/p\mathbb{Z})$ is like a one-dimensional knot in $\pmb{spec}(\mathbb{Z})$ which is like a simply connected three-manifold.”

In a later post we will show that one can even pinpoint the time and place when and where this analogy was first dreamed-up to within a few days and a couple of miles.

For the impatient among you, have a sneak preview of the cradle of birth of the primes=knots idea…

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Mazur’s knotty dictionary

Published December 27, 2008 by lieven

In the previous posts, we have depicted the ‘arithmetic line’, that is the prime numbers, as a ‘line’ and individual primes as ‘points’.

However, sometime in the roaring 60-ties, Barry Mazur launched the crazy idea of viewing the affine spectrum of the integers, $\mathbf{spec}(\mathbb{Z}) $, as a 3-dimensional manifold and prime numbers themselves as knots in this 3-manifold…

After a long silence, this idea was taken up recently by Mikhail Kapranov and Alexander Reznikov (1960-2003) in a talk at the MPI-Bonn in august 1996. Pieter Moree tells the story in his recollections about Alexander (Sacha) Reznikov in Sipping Tea with Sacha : “Sasha’s paper is closely related to his paper where the analogy of covers of three-manifolds and class field theory plays a big role (an analogy that was apparently first noticed by B. Mazur). Sasha and Mikhail Kapranov (at the time also at the institute) were both very interested in this analogy. Eventually, in August 1996, Kapranov and Reznikov both lectured on this (and I explained in about 10 minutes my contribution to Reznikov’s proof). I was pleased to learn some time ago that this lecture series even made it into the literature, see Morishita’s ‘On certain analogies between knots and primes’ J. reine angew. Math 550 (2002) 141-167.”

Here’s a part of what is now called the Kapranov-Reznikov-Mazur dictionary :

What is the rationale behind this dictionary? Well, it all has to do with trying to make sense of the (algebraic) fundamental group $\pi_1^{alg}(X) $ of a general scheme $X $. Recall that for a manifold $M $ there are two different ways to define its fundamental group $\pi_1(M) $ : either as the closed loops in a given basepoint upto homotopy or as the automorphism group of the universal cover $\tilde{M} $ of $M $.

For an arbitrary scheme the first definition doesn’t make sense but we can use the second one as we have a good notion of a (finite) cover : an etale morphism $Y \rightarrow X $ of the scheme $X $. As they form an inverse system, we can take their finite automorphism groups $Aut_X(Y) $ and take their projective limit along the system and call this the algebraic fundamental group $\pi^{alg}_1(X) $.

Hendrik Lenstra has written beautiful course notes on ‘Galois theory for schemes’ on all of this starting from scratch. Besides, there are also two video-lectures available on this at the MSRI-website : Etale fundamental groups 1 by H.W. Lenstra and Etale fundamental groups 2 by F. Pop.

But, what is the connection with the ‘usual’ fundamental group in case both of them can be defined? Well, by construction the algebraic fundamental group is always a profinite group and in the case of manifolds it coincides with the profinite completion of the standard fundamental group, that is,
$\pi^{alg}_1(M) \simeq \widehat{\pi_1(M)} $ (recall that the cofinite completion is the projective limit of all finite group quotients).

Right, so all we have to do to find a topological equivalent of an algebraic scheme is to compute its algebraic fundamental group and find an existing topological space of which the profinite completion of its standard fundamental group coincides with our algebraic fundamental group. An example : a prime number $p $ (as a ‘point’ in $\mathbf{spec}(\mathbb{Z}) $) is the closed subscheme $\mathbf{spec}(\mathbb{F}_p) $ corresponding to the finite field $\mathbb{F}_p = \mathbb{Z}/p\mathbb{Z} $. For any affine scheme of a field $K $, the algebraic fundamental group coincides with the absolute Galois group $Gal(\overline{K}/K) $. In the case of $\mathbb{F}_p $ we all know that this abslute Galois group is isomorphic with the profinite integers $\hat{\mathbb{Z}} $. Now, what is the first topological space coming to mind having the integers as its fundamental group? Right, the circle $S^1 $. Hence, in arithmetic topology we view prime numbers as topological circles, that is, as knots in some bigger space.

But then, what is this bigger space? That is, what is the topological equivalent of $\mathbf{spec}(\mathbb{Z}) $? For this we have to go back to Mazur’s original paper Notes on etale cohomology of number fields in which he gives an Artin-Verdier type duality theorem for the affine spectrum $X=\mathbf{spec}(D) $ of the ring of integers $D $ in a number field. More precisely, there is a non-degenerate pairing $H^r_{et}(X,F) \times Ext^{3-r}_X(F, \mathbb{G}_m) \rightarrow H^3_{et}(X,F) \simeq \mathbb{Q}/\mathbb{Z} $ for any constructible abelian sheaf $F $. This may not tell you much, but it is a ‘sort of’ Poincare-duality result one would have for a compact three dimensional manifold.

Ok, so in particular $\mathbf{spec}(\mathbb{Z}) $ should be thought of as a 3-dimensional compact manifold, but which one? For this we have to compute the algebraic fundamental group. Fortunately, this group is trivial as there are no (non-split) etale covers of $\mathbf{spec}(\mathbb{Z}) $, so the corresponding 3-manifold should be simple connected… but wenow know that this has to imply that the manifold must be $S^3 $, the 3-sphere! Summarizing : in arithmetic topology, prime numbers are knots in the 3-sphere!

More generally (by the same arguments) the affine spectrum $\mathbf{spec}(D) $ of a ring of integers can be thought of as corresponding to a closed oriented 3-dimensional manifold $M $ (which is a cover of $S^3 $) and a prime ideal $\mathfrak{p} \triangleleft D $ corresponds to a knot in $M $.

But then, what is an ideal $\mathfrak{a} \triangleleft D $? Well, we have unique factorization of ideals in $D $, that is, $\mathfrak{a} = \mathfrak{p}_1^{n_1} \ldots \mathfrak{p}_k^{n_k} $ and therefore $\mathfrak{a} $ corresponds to a link in $M $ of which the constituent knots are the ones corresponding to the prime ideals $\mathfrak{p}_i $.

And we can go on like this. What should be an element $w \in D $? Well, it will be an embedded surface $S \rightarrow M $, possibly with a boundary, the boundary being the link corresponding to the ideal $\mathfrak{a} = Dw $ and Seifert’s algorithm tells us how we can produce surfaces having any prescribed link as its boundary. But then, in particular, a unit $w \in D^* $ should correspond to a closed surface in $M $.

And all these analogies carry much further : for example the class group of the ring of integers $Cl(D) $ then corresponds to the torsion part $H_1(M,\mathbb{Z})_{tor} $ because principal ideals $Dw $ are trivial in the class group, just as boundaries of surfaces $\partial S $ vanish in $H_1(M,\mathbb{Z}) $. Similarly, one may identify the unit group $D^* $ with $H_2(M,\mathbb{Z}) $… and so on, and on, and on…

More links to papers on arithmetic topology can be found in John Baez’ week 257 or via here.

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Andre Weil on the Riemann hypothesis

Published October 15, 2008 by lieven

Don’t be fooled by introductory remarks to the effect that ‘the field with one element was conceived by Jacques Tits half a century ago, etc. etc.’

While this is a historic fact, and, Jacques Tits cannot be given enough credit for bringing a touch of surrealism into mathematics, but this is not the main drive for people getting into F_un, today.

There is a much deeper and older motivation behind most papers published recently on $\mathbb{F}_1 $. Few of the authors will be willing to let you in on the secret, though, because if they did, it would sound much too presumptuous…

So, let’s have it out into the open : F_un mathematics’ goal is no less than proving the Riemann Hypothesis.

And even then, authors hide behind a smoke screen. The ‘official’ explanation being “we would like to copy Weil’s proof of the Riemann hypothesis in the case of function fields of curves over finite fields, by considering spec(Z) as a ‘curve’ over an algebra ‘dessous’ Z namely $\mathbb{F}_1 $”. Alas, at this moment, none of the geometric approaches over the field with one element can make this stick.

Believe me for once, the main Jugendtraum of most authors is to get a grip on cyclotomy over $\mathbb{F}_1 $. It is no accident that Connes makes a dramatic pauze in his YouTubeVideo to let the viewer see this equation on the backboard

$\mathbb{F}_{1^n} \otimes_{\mathbb{F}_1} \mathbb{Z} = \mathbb{Z}[x]/(x^n-1) $

But, what is the basis of all this childlike enthusiasm? A somewhat concealed clue is given in the introduction of the Kapranov-Smirnov paper. They write :

“In [?] the affine line over $\mathbb{F}_1 $ was considered; it consists formally of 0 and all the roots of unity. Put slightly differently, this leads to the consideration of “algebraic extensions” of $\mathbb{F}_1 $. By analogy with genuine finite fields we would like to think that there is exactly one such extension of any given degree n, denote it by $\mathbb{F}_{1^n} $.

Of course, $\mathbb{F}_{1^n} $ does not exist in a rigorous sense, but we can think if a scheme $X $ contains n-th roots of unity, then it is defined over $\mathbb{F}_{1^n} $, so that there is a morphism

$p_X~:~X \rightarrow spec(\mathbb{F}_{1^n} $

The point of view that adjoining roots of unity is analogous to the extension of the base field goes back, at least to Weil (Lettre a Artin, Ouvres, vol 1) and Iwasawa…“

Okay, so rush down to your library, pick out the first of three volumes of Andre Weil’s collected works, look up his letter to Emil Artin written on July 10th 1942 (19 printed pages!), and head for the final section. Weil writes :

“Our proof of the Riemann hypothesis (in the function field case, red.) depended upon the extension of the function-fields by roots of unity, i.e. by constants; the way in which the Galois group of such extensions operates on the classes of divisors in the original field and its extensions gives a linear operator, the characteristic roots (i.e. the eigenvalues) of which are the roots of the zeta-function.

On a number field, the nearest we can get to this is by adjunction of $l^n $-th roots of unity, $l $ being fixed; the Galois group of this infinite extension is cyclic, and defines a linear operator on the projective limit of the (absolute) class groups of those successive finite extensions; this should have something to do with the roots of the zeta-function of the field. However, our extensions are ramified (but only at a finite number of places, viz. the prime divisors of $l $). Thus a preliminary study of similar problems in function-fields might enable one to guess what will happen in number-fields.”

A few years later, in 1947, he makes this a bit more explicit in his marvelous essay “L’avenir des mathematiques” (The future of mathematics). Weil is still in shell-shock after the events of the second WW, and writes in beautiful archaic French sentences lasting forever :

“L’hypothèse de Riemann, après qu’on eu perdu l’espoir de la démontrer par les méthodes de la théorie des fonctions, nous apparaît aujourd’hui sous un jour nouveau, qui la montre inséparable de la conjecture d’Artin sur les fonctions L, ces deux problèmes étant deux aspects d’une même question arithmético-algébrique, où l’étude simultanée de toutes les extensions cyclotomiques d’un corps de nombres donné jouera sans doute le rôle décisif.

L’arithmétique gausienne gravitait autour de la loi de réciprocité quadratique; nous savons maintenant que celle-ci n’est qu’un premier example, ou pour mieux dire le paradigme, des lois dites “du corps de classe”, qui gouvernent les extensions abéliennes des corps de nobres algébriques; nous savons formuler ces lois de manière à leur donner l’aspect d’un ensemble cohérent; mais, si plaisante à l’œil que soit cette façade, nous ne savons si elle ne masque pas des symmétries plus cachées.

Les automorphismes induits sur les groupes de classes par les automorphismes du corps, les propriétés des restes de normes dans les cas non cycliques, le passage à la limite (inductive ou projective) quand on remplace le corps de base par des extensions, par example cyclotomiques, de degré indéfiniment croissant, sont autant de questions sur lesquelles notre ignorance est à peu près complète, et dont l’étude contient peut-être la clef de l’hypothese de Riemann; étroitement liée à celles-ci est l’étude du conducteur d’Artin, et en particulier, dans le cas local, la recherche de la représentation dont la trace s’exprime au moyen des caractères simples avec des coefficients égaux aux exposants de leurs conducteurs.

Ce sont là quelques-unes des directions qu’on peut et qu’on doit songer à suivre afin de pénétrer dans le mystère des extensions non abéliennes; il n’est pas impossible que nous touchions là à des principes d’une fécondité extraordinaire, et que le premier pas décisif une fois fait dans cette voie doive nous ouvrir l’accès à de vastes domaines dont nous soupçonnons à peine l’existence; car jusqu’ici, pour amples que soient nos généralisations des résultats de Gauss, on ne peut dire que nus les ayons vraiment dépassés.”