We formulate, using heuristic reasoning, precise conjectures for the range of the number of primes in intervals of length  $y$ around $x$, where $y\ll(\log x)^2$. In particular, we conjecture that the maximum grows surprisingly slowly as $y$ranges from $\log x$ to $(\log x)^2$. We will show that our conjectures are somewhat supported by available data, though not so well that there may not be room for some modification. This is joint work with Andrew Granville.

We consider a crystalline universal deformation ring R of an n-dimensional, mod p Galois representation whose semisimplification is the direct sum of two non-isomorphic absolutely irreducible representations. Under some hypotheses, we obtain that R is a discrete valuation ring. The method examines the ideal of reducibility of R, which is used to construct extensions of representations in a Selmer group with specified dimension.  This can be used to deduce modularity of representations.

The recent proofs of the Tate conjecture for K3 surfaces over finite fields start by lifting the surface to characteristic 0. Serre showed in the sixties that not every variety can be lifted, but the question whether every motive lifts to characteristic 0 is open. We give a negative answer to a geometric version of this question, by constructing a smooth projective variety that cannot be dominated by a smooth projective variety that lifts to characteristic 0.

Let k be a perfect field of characteristic p>0 and let X be a proper scheme over W(k) with semistable reduction. I shall define a log-Chow group for the special fibre X_k and give an interpretation in terms of logarithmic Milnor K-theory. Then, by gluing a logarithmic variant of the Suslin-Voevodsky motivic complex to a log-syntomic complex along the logarithmic Hyodo-Kato Hodge-Witt sheaf, I will prove that an element of the r-th log-Chow group of X_k formally lifts to the continuous log-Chow group of X if and only if it is “Hodge” (i.e. its log-crystalline Chern class lands in the r-th step of the Hodge filtration of the generic fibre of X under the Hyodo-Kato isomorphism). This simultaneously generalises a result of Yamashita (which is the case r=1), and of Bloch-Esnault-Kerz (which is the case of good reduction). This is joint work with Andreas Langer.

Counting non-isomorphic finite nilpotent groups of order n is a very hard problem. One way to approach this problem is to count finite nilpotent groups of fixed nilpotency class c on d generators. The enumeration of such isomorphism classes of objects involves number theory and the theory of algebraic groups. However, very little is known about the explicit generating functions of these sequences of numbers when  c > 2 or d > 2. We use a direct enumeration of such groups that began in the works of M. Bacon, L. Kappe, et al, to provide a natural multivariable extension of the generating function counting such groups. Then we rederive the explicit formulas that are known so far.