Etale descent obstruction and anabelian geometry of curves over finite fields

Abstract

Let $C$ and $D$ be smooth, proper and geometrically integral curves over a finite field $F$. Any morphism from $D$ to $C$ induces a morphism of their étale fundamental groups. The anabelian philosophy proposed by Grothendieck suggests that, when $C$ has genus at least $2$, all open homomorphisms between the étale fundamental groups should arise in this way from a nonconstant morphism of curves. We relate this expectation to the arithmetic of the curve $C_K$ over the global function field $K = F(D)$. Specifically, we show that there is a bijection between the set of conjugacy classes of well-behaved morphism of fundamental groups and locally constant adelic points of $C_K$ that survive étale descent. We use this to provide further evidence for the anabelian conjecture by relating it to another recent conjecture by Sutherland and the second author.