English

Is there a Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture for Dedekind zeta functions?

Number Theory 2026-04-02 v3

Abstract

A Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture for number fields K/QK / \mathbb{Q} would assert that dimVK=ords=1/2ζK(s)dim V_K = ord_{s = 1/2} \zeta_K (s) for some vector space functorially attached to KK. Presently there is no natural candidate for the VKV_K's. However, assuming VKV_K is of a cohomological nature and assuming a conjecture of Serre on the vanishing order of ζK(s)\zeta_K (s) at s=1/2s = 1/2 we show that such functors KVKK \mapsto V_K (with natural extra structures) exist and are all isomorphic. Their common automorphism group is 22-torsion and abelian.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2504.15767,
  title  = {Is there a Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture for Dedekind zeta functions?},
  author = {Christopher Deninger},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2504.15767},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

Final version. To appear in Journal of Number Theory