Descent, Motives and K-theory

Abstract

To an arbitrary variety over a field of characteristic zero, we associate a complex of Chow motives, which is, up to homotopy, unique and bounded. We deduce that any variety has a natural Euler characteristic in the Grothendieck group of Chow motives. We show that the cohomology with integer coefficients of any singular variety over the complex numbers has a natural weight filtration. We define algebraic K-theory with "compact supports".