This book makes a systematic study of the relations between the étale cohomology of a scheme and the orderings of its residue fields. A major result is that in high degrees, étale cohomology is cohomology of the real spectrum. It also contains new contributions in group cohomology and in topos theory. It is of interest to graduate students and researchers who work in algebraic geometry (not only real) and have some familiarity with the basics of étale cohomology and Grothendieck sites. Independently, it is of interest to people working in the cohomology theory of groups or in topos theory.

A generalized etale cohomology theory is a theory which is represented by a presheaf of spectra on an etale site for an algebraic variety, in analogy with the way an ordinary spectrum represents a cohomology theory for spaces. Examples include etale cohomology and etale K-theory. This book gives new and complete proofs of both Thomason's descent theorem for Bott periodic K-theory and the Nisnevich descent theorem. In doing so, it exposes most of the major ideas of the homotopy theory of presheaves of spectra, and generalized etale homology theories in particular. The treatment includes, for the purpose of adequately dealing with cup product structures, a development of stable homotopy theory for n-fold spectra, which is then promoted to the level of presheaves of n-fold spectra. This book should be of interest to all researchers working in fields related to algebraic K-theory. The techniques presented here are essentially combinatorial, and hence algebraic. An extensive background in traditional stable homotopy theory is not assumed. ------ Reviews (...) in developing the techniques of the subject, introduces the reader to the stable homotopy category of simplicial presheaves. (...) This book provides the user with the first complete account which is sensitive enough to be compatible with the sort of closed model category necessary in K-theory applications (...). As an application of the techniques the author gives proofs of the descent theorems of R. W. Thomason and Y. A. Nisnevich. (...) The book concludes with a discussion of the Lichtenbaum-Quillen conjecture (an approximation to Thomason’s theorem without Bott periodicity). The recent proof of this conjecture, by V. Voevodsky, (...) makes this volume compulsory reading for all who want to be au fait with current trends in algebraic K-theory! - Zentralblatt MATH The presentation of these topics is highly original. The book will be very useful for any researcher interested in subjects related to algebraic K-theory. - Matematica

A succinct introduction to etale cohomology. Well-presented and chosen this will be a most welcome addition to the algebraic geometrist's library.

An authoritative introduction to the essential features of étale cohomology A. Grothendieck’s work on algebraic geometry is one of the most important mathematical achievements of the twentieth century. In the early 1960s, he and M. Artin introduced étale cohomology to extend the methods of sheaf-theoretic cohomology from complex varieties to more general schemes. This work found many applications, not only in algebraic geometry but also in several different branches of number theory and in the representation theory of finite and p-adic groups. In this classic book, James Milne provides an invaluable introduction to étale cohomology, covering the essential features of the theory. Milne begins with a review of the basic properties of flat and étale morphisms and the algebraic fundamental group. He then turns to the basic theory of étale sheaves and elementary étale cohomology, followed by an application of the cohomology to the study of the Brauer group. After a detailed analysis of the cohomology of curves and surfaces, Milne proves the fundamental theorems in étale cohomology—those of base change, purity, Poincaré duality, and the Lefschetz trace formula—and applies these theorems to show the rationality of some very general L-series.

New Edition available hereEtale cohomology is an important branch in arithmetic geometry. This book covers the main materials in SGA 1, SGA 4, SGA 4 1/2 and SGA 5 on etale cohomology theory, which includes decent theory, etale fundamental groups, Galois cohomology, etale cohomology, derived categories, base change theorems, duality, and l-adic cohomology. The prerequisites for reading this book are basic algebraic geometry and advanced commutative algebra.

Some years ago a conference on l-adic cohomology in Oberwolfach was held with the aim of reaching an understanding of Deligne's proof of the Weil conjec tures. For the convenience of the speakers the present authors - who were also the organisers of that meeting - prepared short notes containing the central definitions and ideas of the proofs. The unexpected interest for these notes and the various suggestions to publish them encouraged us to work somewhat more on them and fill out the gaps. Our aim was to develop the theory in as self contained and as short a manner as possible. We intended especially to provide a complete introduction to etale and l-adic cohomology theory including the monodromy theory of Lefschetz pencils. Of course, all the central ideas are due to the people who created the theory, especially Grothendieck and Deligne. The main references are the SGA-notes [64-69]. With the kind permission of Professor J. A. Dieudonne we have included in the book that finally resulted his excellent notes on the history of the Weil conjectures, as a second introduction. Our original notes were written in German. However, we finally followed the recommendation made variously to publish the book in English. We had the good fortune that Professor W. Waterhouse and his wife Betty agreed to translate our manuscript. We want to thank them very warmly for their willing involvement in such a tedious task. We are very grateful to the staff of Springer-Verlag for their careful work.

Diese Forschungsmonographie von hohem mathematischen Niveau liefert einen neuen Zugang zu den rigid-analytischen Räumen, sowie ihrer etalen Kohomologie.USP: Aus der Froschung: Zahlentheorie und Algebraische Geometrie