On non-commutative Euler systems

Abstract: Let $p$ be a prime, $T$ a $p$-adic representation over a number field $K$ and $\mathcal{K}$ an arbitrary Galois extension of $K$. Then for each non-negative integer $r$ we define a natural notion of a `non-commutative Euler system of rank $r$' for $T$ relative to the extension $\mathcal{K}/K$. We prove that if $p$ is odd and $T$ and $\mathcal{K}/K$ satisfy certain mild hypotheses, then there exist non-commutative Euler systems that control the Galois structure of cohomology groups of $T$ over intermediate fields of $\mathcal{K}/K$ and have rank that depends explicitly on $T$. As a first concrete application of this approach, we (unconditionally) extend the classical Euler system of cyclotomic units to the setting of arbitrary totally real Galois extensions of $\mathbb{Q}$ and describe explicit links between this extended cyclotomic Euler system, the values at zero of derivatives of Artin $L$-series and the Galois structures of ideal class groups. As an important preliminary to the formulation and proof of these results, we introduce natural non-commutative generalizations of several standard constructions in commutative algebra including higher Fitting invariants, higher exterior powers and the Grothendieck-Knudsen-Mumford determinant functor on perfect complexes that are of independent interest.