Let $p$ be a prime number and let $F$ be a field of characteristic different from $p$. We prove that there exist a field extension $L/F$ and $a,b,c,d$ in $L^{\times }$ such that $(a,b)=(b,c)=(c,d)=0$ in $\mathrm {Br}(L)[p]$ but the mod p Massey product $\langle a,b,c,d\rangle$ is not defined over $L$. Thus, the strong Massey vanishing conjecture at the prime $p$ fails for $L$, and the cochain differential graded ring $C^{* }(\Gamma _L,\mathbb Z/p\mathbb Z)$ of the absolute Galois group $\Gamma _L$ of $L$ is not formal. This answers a question of Positselski. As our main tool, we define a secondary obstruction that detects non-triviality of unramified torsors under tori, and which is of independent interest.

The main result of this paper concerns the positivity of the Hodge bundles of abelian varieties over global function fields. As applications, we obtain some partial results on the Tate–Shafarevich group and the Tate conjecture of surfaces over finite fields.

We give a geometric interpretation of sheaf cohomology for higher degrees $n\geq 1$ in terms of torsors on the member of degree $d=n-1$ in hypercoverings of type $r=n-2$, endowed with an additional datum, the so-called rigidification. This generalizes the fact that cohomology in degree one is the group of isomorphism classes of torsors, where the rigidification becomes vacuous, and that cohomology in degree two can be expressed in terms of bundle gerbes, where the rigidification becomes an associativity constraint.

Let $U$ be an affine smooth curve defined over an algebraically closed field of positive characteristic. The Abhyankar conjecture (proved by Raynaud and Harbater in 1994) describes the set of finite quotients of Grothendieck’s étale fundamental group $\unicode[STIX]{x1D70B}_{1}^{\acute{\text{e}}\text{t}}(U)$. In this paper, we consider a purely inseparable analogue of this problem, formulated in terms of Nori’s profinite fundamental group scheme $\unicode[STIX]{x1D70B}^{N}(U)$, and give a partial answer to it.

Answering a question of H. Petersson, we provide a class of examples of a pair of octonion algebras over a ring having isometric norms.

Let $J$ be an abelian variety and $A$ be an abelian subvariety of $J$ , both defined over $Q$ . Let $x$ be an element of ${{H}^{1}}\left( Q,\,A \right)$ . Then there are at least two definitions of $x$ being visible in $J$ : one asks that the torsor corresponding to $x$ be isomorphic over $Q$ to a subvariety of $J$ , and the other asks that $x$ be in the kernel of the natural map ${{H}^{1}}\left( Q,\,A \right)\,\to \,{{H}^{1}}\left( \text{Q},\,J \right)$ . In this article, we clarify the relation between the two definitions.

In this paper, we show that rationally trivial torsors under split smooth linear algebraic groups induce fibre sequences in -homotopy theory. The results allow geometric proofs of stabilization results for unstable Karoubi-Villamayor K-theories and a description of the second -homotopy group of the projective line.

Let $V$ be a complete discrete valuation ring with residue field $k$ of characteristic $p>0$ and fraction field $K$ of characteristic zero. Let ${\cal S}$ be a formal scheme over $V$ and let $\mathfrak{X}\to {\cal S}$ be a locally projective formal abelian scheme. In this paper we prove that, under suitable natural conditions on the Hasse–Witt matrix of $\mathfrak{X}\otimes_V V/\mathit{pV}$, the kernel of the Frobenius morphism on $\mathfrak{X}_k$ can be canonically lifted to a finite and flat subgroup scheme of $\mathfrak{X}$ over an admissible blow-up of ${\cal S}$, called the ‘canonical subgroup of $\mathfrak{X}$’. This is done by a careful study of torsors under group schemes of order $p$ over $\mathfrak{X}$. We also present a filtration on ${\rm H}^1(\mathfrak{X},\mu_p)$ in the spirit of the Hodge–Tate decomposition.

We define here an analogue, for a semi-stable group scheme whose generic fiber is an abelian variety, of M. J. Taylor's class-invariant homomorphism (defined for abelian schemes), and we give a geometric description of it. Then we extend a result of Taylor, Srivastav, Agboola and Pappas concerning the kernel of this homomorphism in the case of an elliptic curve.

Using non-abelian cohomology we introduce new obstructions to the Hasse principle. In particular, we generalize the classical descent formalism to principal homogeneous spaces under noncommutative algebraic groups and give explicit examples of application.