Birational invariance of motivic zeta functions of $K$-trivial varieties, and obstructions to smooth fillings

Abstract: The motivic zeta function of a smooth and proper $\mathbb{C}((t))$-variety $X$ with trivial canonical bundle is a rational function with coefficients in an appropriate Grothendieck ring of complex varieties, which measures how $X$ degenerates at $t=0$. In analogy with Igusa's monodromy conjecture for $p$-adic zeta functions of hypersurface singularities, we expect that the poles of the motivic zeta function of $X$ correspond to monodromy eigenvalues on the cohomology of $X$. In this paper, we prove that the motivic zeta function and the monodromy conjecture are preserved under birational equivalence, which extends the range of known cases. As a further application, we explain how the motivic zeta function acts as an obstruction to the existence of a smooth filling for $X$ at $t=0$.