Abstract: The comparison isomorphism in p-adic Hodge theory asserts that
in some sense, the p-adic etale cohomology and the algebraic de Rham cohomology
of a smooth proper variety over a finite extension of Q_p determine each
other. We propose an alternate interpretation in which the central
object is a standard auxiliary object in p-adic Hodge theory called a
(phi, Gamma)-module, from which p-adic etale cohomology and algebraic de
Rham cohomology are functorially derived using mechanisms introduced by
Fontaine. The hope is to then enrich this object to carry additional
structures especially for varieties defined over number fields; we
illustrate this by showing how to incorporate the rational structure of
de Rham cohomology. (This depends on joint work with Chris Davis.)

How many cusp form are there on SL(2), SL(n), or a more general (reductive or semisimple) linear algebraic group? Until a few years ago it was not known that there are infinitely many cusp forms on a group such as SL(n) beyond very small values of n.

Weyl's law refers to an asymptotic formula for the number of cusp forms on a given connected reductive group, in particular establishing their infinitude. I will discuss some work-in-progress, joint with Werner Mueller of University of Bonn, establishing Weyl's law with remainder terms for classical groups. Without remainder terms, this result was established, for spherical cusp forms, by Lindenstrauss and Venkatesh in a rather general setting.

Let $C$ be a curve over a local field whose reduction is totally
degenerate. We discuss the related problems of 1) determining the
group structure of the torsion subgroup of the Jacobian of $C$, and 2)
determining if a given line bundle on $C$ is divisible by a given
integer $r$. Under certain hypotheses on the reduction of $C$, we
exhibit explicit algorithms for answering these two questions.

Every finite field has many multiplicative generators. However,
finding one in polynomial time is an important open problem .
In fact, even finding elements of high order has not been solved
satisfactorily. In this paper, we present an algorithm that for any
positive integer $c$ and prime power $q$, finding an element of
order $\exp(\Omega(\sqrt{q^c}) ) $ in the finite field $\F_{q^{(q^c-1)/(q-1)}}$
in deterministic time $(q^c)^{O(1)}$. We also show that there are
$\exp(\Omega(\sqrt{q^c}) ) $ many weak keys for the discrete logarithm problems
in those fields with respect to certain bases.

Serre proved in 1972 that the image of the adelic Galois representation
associated to an elliptic curve E without complex multiplication has open
image; moreover, he also proved that for an elliptic curve over Q the
index of the image is always divisible by 2 (and in particular never
surjective). More recently, Greicius in his thesis gave criteria for
surjectivity and gave an explicit example of an elliptic curve E over a
number field K with surjective adelic representation. Soon after, Zywina,
building on earlier work of Duke, Jones, and others, proved that the
adelic image `random' elliptic curve is maximal.

In this talk I will explain recent joint work with David Zywina in which
we generalize these theorems and prove that a random abelian variety in a
family with big monodromy has maximal image of Galois. I'll explain what
big monodromy and maximal mean an explain the analytic and geometric
techniques used in previous work and the new geometric ideas -- in
particular, Nori's method of semistable approximation-- needed to
generalized to higher dimension.