Étale Cohomology, Lefschetz Theorems and Number of Points of Singular Varieties over Finite Fields

We prove a general inequality for estimating the number of points of arbitrary complete intersections over a finite field. This extends a result of Deligne for nonsingular complete intersections. For normal complete intersections, this inequality generalizes also the classical Lang-Weil inequality. Moreover, we prove the Lang-Weil inequality for affine as well as projective varieties with an explicit description and a bound for the constant appearing therein. We also prove a conjecture of Lang and Weil concerning the Picard varieties and étale cohomology spaces of projective varieties. The general inequality for complete intersections may be viewed as a more precise version of the estimates given by Hooley and Katz. The proof is primarily based on a suitable generalization of the Weak Lefschetz Theorem to singular varieties together with some Bertini-type arguments and the Grothendieck-Lefschetz Trace Formula. We also describe some auxiliary results concerning the étale cohomology spaces and Betti numbers of projective varieties over finite fields and a conjecture along with some partial results concerning the number of points of projective algebraic sets over finite fields. Date: March 8, 2002. 1991 Mathematics Subject Classification. 11G25, 14F20, 14G15, 14M10.