The Stacks project

93.6 Continuous representations

A very interesting thing one can do is to take an infinite Galois group and study the deformation theory of its representations, see [Mazur-deforming].

Example 93.6.1 (Representations of a topological group). Let $\Gamma $ be a topological group. Let $\mathcal{F}$ be the category defined as follows

  1. an object is a triple $(A, M, \rho )$ consisting of an object $A$ of $\mathcal{C}_\Lambda $, a finite projective $A$-module $M$, and a continuous homomorphism $\rho : \Gamma \to \text{GL}_ A(M)$ where $\text{GL}_ A(M)$ is given the discrete topology1, and

  2. a morphism $(f, g) : (B, N, \tau ) \to (A, M, \rho )$ consists of a morphism $f : B \to A$ in $\mathcal{C}_\Lambda $ together with a map $g : N \to M$ which is $f$-linear and $\Gamma $-equivariant and induces an isomorpism $N \otimes _{B, f} A \cong M$.

The functor $p : \mathcal{F} \to \mathcal{C}_\Lambda $ sends $(A, M, \rho )$ to $A$ and $(f, g)$ to $f$. It is clear that $p$ is cofibred in groupoids. Given a finite dimensional $k$-vector space $V$ and a continuous representation $\rho _0 : \Gamma \to \text{GL}_ k(V)$, let $x_0 = (k, V, \rho _0)$ be the corresponding object of $\mathcal{F}(k)$. We set

\[ \mathcal{D}\! \mathit{ef}_{V, \rho _0} = \mathcal{F}_{x_0} \]

Since every finite projective module over a local ring is finite free (Algebra, Lemma 10.78.2) we see that

\[ \begin{matrix} \text{isomorphism classes} \\ \text{of objects of }\mathcal{F}(A) \end{matrix} = \coprod \nolimits _{n \geq 0}\quad \begin{matrix} \text{GL}_ n(A)\text{-conjugacy classes of} \\ \text{continuous homomorphisms }\rho : \Gamma \to \text{GL}_ n(A) \end{matrix} \]

Lemma 93.6.2. Example 93.6.1 satisfies the Rim-Schlessinger condition (RS). In particular, $\mathcal{D}\! \mathit{ef}_{V, \rho _0}$ is a deformation category for any finite dimensional continuous representation $\rho _0 : \Gamma \to \text{GL}_ k(V)$.

Proof. The proof is exactly the same as the proof of Lemma 93.5.2. $\square$

Lemma 93.6.3. In Example 93.6.1 let $\rho _0 : \Gamma \to \text{GL}_ k(V)$ be a finite dimensional continuous representation. Then

\[ T\mathcal{D}\! \mathit{ef}_{V, \rho _0} = H^1(\Gamma , \text{End}_ k(V)) \quad \text{and}\quad \text{Inf}(\mathcal{D}\! \mathit{ef}_{V, \rho _0}) = H^0(\Gamma , \text{End}_ k(V)) \]

Thus $\text{Inf}(\mathcal{D}\! \mathit{ef}_{V, \rho _0})$ is always finite dimensional and $T\mathcal{D}\! \mathit{ef}_{V, \rho _0}$ is finite dimensional if $\Gamma $ is topologically finitely generated.

Proof. The proof is exactly the same as the proof of Lemma 93.5.3. $\square$

In Example 93.6.1 if $\Gamma $ is topologically finitely generated and $(V, \rho _0)$ is a finite dimensional continuous representation of $\Gamma $ over $k$, then $\mathcal{D}\! \mathit{ef}_{V, \rho _0}$ admits a presentation by a smooth prorepresentable groupoid in functors over $\mathcal{C}_\Lambda $ and a fortiori has a (minimal) versal formal object. This follows from Lemmas 93.6.2 and 93.6.3 and the general discussion in Section 93.3.

Lemma 93.6.4. In Example 93.6.1 assume $\Gamma $ is topologically finitely generated. Let $\rho _0 : \Gamma \to \text{GL}_ k(V)$ be a finite dimensional representation. Assume $\Lambda $ is a complete local ring with residue field $k$ (the classical case). Then the functor

\[ F : \mathcal{C}_\Lambda \longrightarrow \textit{Sets},\quad A \longmapsto \mathop{\mathrm{Ob}}\nolimits (\mathcal{D}\! \mathit{ef}_{V, \rho _0}(A))/\cong \]

of isomorphism classes of objects has a hull. If $H^0(\Gamma , \text{End}_ k(V)) = k$, then $F$ is prorepresentable.

Proof. The proof is exactly the same as the proof of Lemma 93.5.4. $\square$

[1] An alternative would be to require the $A$-module $M$ with $G$-action given by $\rho $ is an $A\text{-}G$-module as defined in Étale Cohomology, Definition 59.57.1. However, since $M$ is a finite $A$-module, this is equivalent.

Comments (0)


Post a comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked.

In your comment you can use Markdown and LaTeX style mathematics (enclose it like $\pi$). A preview option is available if you wish to see how it works out (just click on the eye in the toolbar).

Unfortunately JavaScript is disabled in your browser, so the comment preview function will not work.

All contributions are licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.




In order to prevent bots from posting comments, we would like you to prove that you are human. You can do this by filling in the name of the current tag in the following input field. As a reminder, this is tag 0DVU. Beware of the difference between the letter 'O' and the digit '0'.