In my talk, I will discuss an application of the theory of motives to transcendence theory, concentrating on the formal aspects. The Period Conjecture predicts that all relations between period numbers are induced by properties of the category of motives. It is a theorem for motives of points and curves, but wide open in general. The Period Conjecture also implies fullness of the Hodge-de Rham realization on Nori motives. If time permits, I will discuss how this generalizes (conjecturally) to triangulated motives and thus to motivic cohomology.[-]

The Grothendieck-Knudsen moduli space of stable rational curves n markings is arguably one of the simplest moduli spaces: it is a smooth projective variety that can be described explicitly as a blow-up of projective space, with strata corresponding to nodal curves similar to the torus invariant strata of a toric variety. Conjecturally, its Mori cone of curves is generated by strata, but this is known only for n up to 7. In contrast, the cones of effective divisors are not f initely generated, in all characteristics, when n is at least 10. After a general introduction to these topics, I will discuss what we call elliptic pairs and LangTrotter polygons, relating the question of finite generation of effective cones of blow-ups of certain toric surfaces to the arithmetic of elliptic curves. These lectures are based on joint work with Antonio Laface, Jenia Tevelev and Luca Ugaglia.[-]

The Grothendieck-Knudsen moduli space of stable rational curves n markings is arguably one of the simplest moduli spaces: it is a smooth projective variety that can be described explicitly as a blow-up of projective space, with strata corresponding to nodal curves similar to the torus invariant strata of a toric variety. Conjecturally, its Mori cone of curves is generated by strata, but this is known only for n up to 7. In contrast, the cones of effective divisors are not f initely generated, in all characteristics, when n is at least 10. After a general introduction to these topics, I will discuss what we call elliptic pairs and LangTrotter polygons, relating the question of finite generation of effective cones of blow-ups of certain toric surfaces to the arithmetic of elliptic curves. These lectures are based on joint work with Antonio Laface, Jenia Tevelev and Luca Ugaglia.[-]

The preceding Etats de la recherche on this topic happened in Rennes, 2006, and the organizers of the present edition asked me to make the bridge between these two sessions. My 2006 talks were devoted to the theory of heights and equidistribution theorems for algebraic dynamical systems. I will start from there by presenting the framework allowed by Arakelov geometry, and explaining the recent manuscript of X. Yuan and S.-W. Zhang who provide a birational perspective to these concepts. The theory is a bit complex and technical but I will try to emphasize the parallel between those ideas and the ones that lie at the ground of pluripotential theory in complex analysis, or in the theory of b-divisors in algebraic geometry.[-]

The density theorem of Schlesinger ensures that the monodromy group of a differential system with regular singular points is Zariski-dense in its differential Galois group. We have analogs of this result for difference systems such as q-difference and Mahler systems, whose only assumption is the regular singular condition. Moreover, solutions of difference or differential systems with regular singularities have good analytical properties. For example, the solutions of differential systems which are regular singular at 0 have moderate growth at 0. We have general algorithms for recognizing regular singularities and they apply to many systems such as differential and q-difference systems. However, they do not apply to the Mahler case, systems that appear in many areas like automata theory. We will explain how to recognize regular singularities of Mahler systems. It is a joint work with Colin Faverjon.[-]

The mini-course is structured into three parts. In the first part, we provide a general overview of the tools available in the summation package Sigma, with a particular focus on parameterized telescoping (which includes Zeilberger's creative telescoping as a special case) and recurrence solving for the class of indefinite nested sums defined over nested products. The second part delves into the core concepts of the underlying difference ring theory, offering detailed insights into the algorithmic framework. Special attention is given to the representation of indefinite nested sums and products within the difference ring setting. As a bonus, we obtain a toolbox that facilitates the construction of summation objects whose sequences are algebraically independent of one another. In the third part, we demonstrate how this summation toolbox can be applied to tackle complex problems arising in enumerative combinatorics, number theory, and elementary particle physics.[-]

I will first explain the joint work with Walter van Suijlekom on a new result about th zeros of the Fourier transform of extremal eigenvectors for quadratic forms associated to distributions on a bounded interval and its relation with the spectral action. Then I will explain how these results allow to advance in the joint work which I am doing with Consani and Moscovici on the zeta spectral triple. Finally, if time permits, I will discuss several ideas in connection with physics and non-commutative geometry.[-]

This series of three talks is the first part of an introductory course on the generalized Sato-Tate conjecture, made in collaboration with Andrew V. Sutherland at the Winter School "Frobenius distributions on curves", celebrated in Luminy in February 2014. In the first talk, some general background following Serre's works is introduced: equidistribution and its connexion to L-functions, the Sato-Tate group and the Sato-Tate conjecture. In the second talk, we present the Sato-Tate axiomatic, which leads us to some Lie group theoretic classification results. The last part of the talk is devoted to illustrate the methods involved in the proof of this kind of results by considering a concrete example. In the third and final talk, we present Banaszak and Kedlaya's algebraic version of the Sato-Tate conjecture, we describe the notion of Galois type of an abelian variety, and we establish the dictionary between Galois types and Sato-Tate groups of abelian surfaces defined over number fields.
generalized Sato-Tate conjecture - Sato-Tate group - equidistribution - Sato-Tate axioms - Galois type - Abelian surfaces - endomorphism algebra - Frobenius distributions[-]

The $p$-adic Igusa zeta function, topological and motivic zeta function are (related) invariants of a polynomial $f$, reflecting the singularities of the hypersurface $f = 0$. The first one has a number theoretical flavor and is related to counting numbers of solutions of $f = 0$ over finite rings; the other two are more geometric in nature. The monodromy conjecture relates in a mysterious way these invariants to another singularity invariant of $f$, its local monodromy. We will discuss in this survey talk rationality issues for these zeta functions and the origins of the conjecture.[-]