Chứng minh Định lý Fermat cuối cùng của Andrew Wiles trên Annals of Mathematics

Annals of Mathematics, 141 (1995), 443-551 Modular elliptic curves and Fermat’s Last Theorem By Andrew John Wiles* For Nada, Claire, Kate and Olivia Pierre de Fermat Andrew John Wiles Cubum autem in duos cubos, aut quadratoquadratum in duos quadra- toquadratos, et generaliter nullam in infinitum ultra quadratum potestatum in duos ejusdem nominis fas est dividere: cujes rei demonstrationem mirabilem sane detexi. Hanc marginis exiguitas non caperet. - Pierre de Fermat ∼ 1637 Abstract. When Andrew John Wiles was 10 years old, he read Eric Temple Bell’s The Last Problem and was so impressed by it that he decided that he would be the first person to prove Fermat’s Last Theorem.

This theorem states that there are no nonzero integers a, b, c, n with n > 2 such that an + bn = cn. The object of this paper is to prove that all semistable elliptic curves over the set of rational numbers are modular. Fermat’s Last Theorem follows as a corollary by virtue of previous work by Frey, Serre and Ribet. Introduction An elliptic curve over Q is said to be modular if it has a finite covering by a modular curve of the form X0 (N ).

Any such elliptic curve has the property that its Hasse-Weil zeta function has an analytic continuation and satisfies a functional equation of the standard type. If an elliptic curve over Q with a given j-invariant is modular then it is easy to see that all elliptic curves with the same j-invariant are modular (in which case we say that the j-invariant is modular). A well-known conjecture which grew out of the work of Shimura and Taniyama in the 1950’s and 1960’s asserts that every elliptic curve over Q is modular. However, it only became widely known through its publication in a paper of Weil in 1967 [We] (as an exercise for the interested reader!), in which, moreover, Weil gave conceptual evidence for the conjecture.

Although it had been numerically verified in many cases, prior to the results described in this paper it had only been known that finitely many j-invariants were modular. In 1985 Frey made the remarkable observation that this conjecture should imply Fermat’s Last Theorem. The precise mechanism relating the two was formulated by Serre as the ε-conjecture and this was then proved by Ribet in the summer of 1986. Ribet’s result only requires one to prove the conjecture for semistable elliptic curves in order to deduce Fermat’s Last Theorem.

*The work on this paper was supported by an NSF grant. 444 ANDREW JOHN WILES Our approach to the study of elliptic curves is via their associated Galois representations. Suppose that ρp is the representation of Gal(Q̄/Q) on the p-division points of an elliptic curve over Q, and suppose for the moment that ρ3 is irreducible. The choice of 3 is critical because a crucial theorem of Lang- lands and Tunnell shows that if ρ3 is irreducible then it is also modular.

We then proceed by showing that under the hypothesis that ρ3 is semistable at 3, together with some milder restrictions on the ramification of ρ3 at the other primes, every suitable lifting of ρ3 is modular. To do this we link the problem, via some novel arguments from commutative algebra, to a class number prob- lem of a well-known type. This we then solve with the help of the paper [TW]. This suffices to prove the modularity of E as it is known that E is modular if and only if the associated 3-adic representation is modular.

The key development in the proof is a new and surprising link between two strong but distinct traditions in number theory, the relationship between Galois representations and modular forms on the one hand and the interpretation of special values of L-functions on the other. The former tradition is of course more recent. Following the original results of Eichler and Shimura in the 1950’s and 1960’s the other main theorems were proved by Deligne, Serre and Langlands in the period up to 1980. This included the construction of Galois representations associated to modular forms, the refinements of Langlands and Deligne (later completed by Carayol), and the crucial application by Langlands of base change methods to give converse results in weight one.

However with the exception of the rather special weight one case, including the extension by Tunnell of Langlands’ original theorem, there was no progress in the direction of associating modular forms to Galois representations. From the mid 1980’s the main impetus to the field was given by the conjectures of Serre which elaborated on the ε-conjecture alluded to before. Besides the work of Ribet and others on this problem we draw on some of the more specialized developments of the 1980’s, notably those of Hida and Mazur. The second tradition goes back to the famous analytic class number for- mula of Dirichlet, but owes its modern revival to the conjecture of Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer.

In practice however, it is the ideas of Iwasawa in this field on which we attempt to draw, and which to a large extent we have to replace. The principles of Galois cohomology, and in particular the fundamental theorems of Poitou and Tate, also play an important role here. The restriction that ρ3 be irreducible at 3 is bypassed by means of an intriguing argument with families of elliptic curves which share a common ρ5. Using this, we complete the proof that all semistable elliptic curves are modular.

In particular, this finally yields a proof of Fermat’s Last Theorem. In addition, this method seems well suited to establishing that all elliptic curves over Q are modular and to generalization to other totally real number fields. Now we present our methods and results in more detail. MODULAR ELLIPTIC CURVES AND FERMAT’S LAST THEOREM 445 Let f be an eigenform associated to the congruence subgroup Γ1 (N ) of SL2 (Z) of weight k ≥ 2 and character χ.

Thus if Tn is the Hecke operator associated to an integer n there is an algebraic integer c(n, f ) such that Tn f = c(n, f )f for each n. We let Kf be the number field generated over Q by the {c(n, f )} together with the values of χ and let Of be its ring of integers. For any prime λ of Of let Of,λ be the completion of Of at λ. The following theorem is due to Eichler and Shimura (for k = 2) and Deligne (for k > 2).

The analogous result when k = 1 is a celebrated theorem of Serre and Deligne but is more naturally stated in terms of complex representations. The image in that case is finite and a converse is known in many cases. For each prime p ∈ Z and each prime λ|p of Of there is a continuous representation ρf,λ : Gal(Q̄/Q) −→ GL2 (Of,λ ) which is unramified outside the primes dividing N p and such that for all primes q - N p, trace ρf,λ (Frob q) = c(q, f ), det ρf,λ (Frob q) = χ(q)q k−1. We will be concerned with trying to prove results in the opposite direction, that is to say, with establishing criteria under which a λ-adic representation arises in this way from a modular form.

We have not found any advantage in assuming that the representation is part of a compatible system of λ-adic representations except that the proof may be easier for some λ than for others. Assume ρ0 : Gal(Q̄/Q) −→ GL2 (F̄p ) is a continuous representation with values in the algebraic closure of a finite field of characteristic p and that det ρ0 is odd. We say that ρ0 is modular if ρ0 and ρf,λ mod λ are isomorphic over F̄p for some f and λ and some embedding of Of /λ in F̄p. Serre has conjectured that every irreducible ρ0 of odd determinant is modular.

Very little is known about this conjecture except when the image of ρ0 in PGL2 (F̄p ) is dihedral, A4 or S4. In the dihedral case it is true and due (essentially) to Hecke, and in the A4 and S4 cases it is again true and due primarily to Langlands, with one important case due to Tunnell (see Theorem 5. More precisely these theorems actually associate a form of weight one to the corresponding complex representation but the versions we need are straightforward deductions from the complex case. Even in the reducible case not much is known about the problem in the form we have described it, and in that case it should be observed that one must also choose the lattice carefully as only the semisimplification of 2 ρf,λ = ρf,λ mod λ is independent of the choice of lattice in Kf,λ.

446 ANDREW JOHN WILES If O is the ring of integers of a local field (containing Qp ) we will say that ρ : Gal(Q̄/Q) −→ GL2 (O) is a lifting of ρ0 if, for a specified embedding of the residue field of O in F̄p , ρ̄ and ρ0 are isomorphic over F̄p. Our point of view will be to assume that ρ0 is modular and then to attempt to give conditions under which a representation ρ lifting ρ0 comes from a modular form in the sense that ρ ≃ ρf,λ over Kf,λ for some f, λ. We will restrict our attention to two cases: (I) ρ0 is ordinary (at p) by which we mean that there is a one-dimensional subspace of F̄2p , stable under a decomposition group at p and such that the action on the quotient space is unramified and distinct from the action on the subspace. (II) ρ0 is flat (at p), meaning that as a representation of a decomposition group at p, ρ0 is equivalent to one that arises from a finite flat group scheme over Zp , and det ρ0 restricted to an inertia group at p is the cyclotomic character.

We say similarly that ρ is ordinary (at p), if viewed as a representation to Q̄2p , there is a one-dimensional subspace of Q̄2p stable under a decomposition group at p and such that the action on the quotient space is unramified. Let ε : Gal(Q̄/Q) −→ Z× p denote the cyclotomic character. Conjectural converses to Theorem 0.1 have been part of the folklore for many years but have hitherto lacked any evidence. The critical idea that one might dispense with compatible systems was already observed by Drinfield in the function field case [Dr].

The idea that one only needs to make a geometric condition on the restriction to the decomposition group at p was first suggested by Fontaine and Mazur. The following version is a natural extension of Serre’s conjecture which is convenient for stating our results and is, in a slightly modified form, the one proposed by Fontaine and Mazur. (In the form stated this incorporates Serre’s conjecture. We could instead have made the hypothesis that ρ0 is modular.

Suppose that ρ : Gal(Q̄/Q) −→ GL2 (O) is an irreducible lifting of ρ0 and that ρ is unramified outside of a finite set of primes. There are two cases: (i) Assume that ρ0 is ordinary. Then if ρ is ordinary and det ρ = εk−1 χ for some integer k ≥ 2 and some χ of finite order, ρ comes from a modular form. (ii) Assume that ρ0 is flat and that p is odd.

Then if ρ restricted to a de- composition group at p is equivalent to a representation on a p-divisible group, again ρ comes from a modular form. MODULAR ELLIPTIC CURVES AND FERMAT’S LAST THEOREM 447 In case (ii) it is not hard to see that if the form exists it has to be of weight 2; in (i) of course it would have weight k.