Golod--Shafarevich for arithmetic surfaces

Source abstract

We construct Golod--Shafarevich towers of arithmetic surfaces over the integers. In particular, we obtain an arithmetic surface with a section and infinite geometric etale fundamental group, answering a question raised by Bost and Charles about the existence of such surfaces. Taking generic fibres gives curves over the rationals with infinite geometric etale towers in which a rational point splits completely. This answers questions posed by Ihara and by Frey, Kani and Völklein. Taking the generic fibres of the tower, we also obtain sequence of curves over the rationals whose genera goes to infinity and whose logarithmic conductors grows no more than linearly in the genera, answering a question asked by Venkatesh at PCMI in 2022. The authors worked together on this problem since 2022 and developed a general strategy. They were able to bring it to fruit only after a collaboration with GPT5.6 Sol, Fable and Aletheia a Gemini-powered internal agent developed at Google DeepMind.