Nathan
Green
Department of
Mathematics
UCSD
Title: Algebraic Independence of Zeta Values of
Function Fields of Elliptic Curves
Abstract:
Classically, the transcendence (and even
the irrationality) of odd zeta values is widely
conjectured, but yet unproven. However, for zeta
values defined over the rational function field, Jing
Yu succeeded in proving their transcendence in
1991. Many other transcendence results
(including algebraic independence) followed in the
intervening years. In this work (joint with T. Ngo
Dac), we prove the algebraic independence of zeta
values defined over the function field of an elliptic
curve. The main technique we use is to construct a
Tannakian category of t-motives whose associated
periods contain these zeta values - thus we may
exploit the existence of a motivic Galois group to
study the transcendence degree. We also discuss the
difficulties and pathway to proving algebraic
independence for zeta values of function fields of
arbitrary curves.