Zeta functions over finite fields- An exposition of Dwork's methods

Abstract

The paper reviews Dwork's p-adic analytic methods used in the Weil Conjectures. The first two chapters review a version of his proof of the rationality conjecture. The rest of the paper is devoted to Dwork's original cohomological methods, along with some p-adic functional analysis. The last chapter applies what is developed to an example of Dwork's family of hypersurfaces.