The density of ramified primes

TL;DR

This paper proves that for certain big Galois representations over number fields, the set of ramified primes has density zero, extending classical results to a broader algebraic context.

Contribution

It establishes that the set of ramified primes in big Galois representations over various algebraic structures has density zero, generalizing prior results by Khare and Rajan.

Findings

Set of ramified primes has density zero in specified contexts.

Results extend classical ramification density results to big Galois representations.

Applicable to representations over complete local Noetherian rings and affinoid algebras.

Abstract

Let $F$ be a number field, $\mathcal{O}$ be a domain with fraction field $\mathcal{K}$ of characteristic zero and $\rho: \mathrm{Gal}(\overline F/F) \to \mathrm{GL}_n(\mathcal{O})$ be a representation such that $\rho\otimes\overline{\mathcal{K}}$ is semisimple. If $\mathcal{O}$ admits a finite monomorphism from a power series ring with coefficients in a $p$-adic integer ring (resp. $\mathcal{O}$ is an affinoid algebra over a $p$-adic number field) and $\rho$ is continuous with respect to the maximal ideal adic topology (resp. the Banach algebra topology), then we prove that the set of ramified primes of $\rho$ is of density zero. If $\mathcal{O}$ is a complete local Noetherian ring over $\mathbb{Z}_p$ with finite residue field of characteristic $p$, $\rho$ is continuous with respect to the maximal ideal adic topology and the kernels of pure specializations of $\rho$ form a Zariski-dense subset of $\mathrm{Spec} \mathcal{O}$, then we show that the set of ramified primes of $\rho$ is of density zero. These results are analogues, in the context of big Galois representations, of a result of Khare and Rajan, and are proved relying on their result.