The fractional Galois ideal is a conjectural improvement on the higher Stickelberger ideals defined at negative integers, and is expected to provide non-trivial annihilators for higher $K$-groups of rings of integers of number fields. In this article, we extend the definition of the fractional Galois ideal to arbitrary (possibly infinite and non-abelian) Galois extensions of number fields under the assumption of Stark's conjectures and prove naturality properties under canonical changes of extension. We discuss applications of this to the construction of ideals in non-commutative Iwasawa algebras.

Let $E$ be an elliptic curve, and let $L_n$ be the Kummer extension generated by a primitive $p^n$-th root of unity and a $p^n$-th root of $a$ for a fixed $a\in \mathbb{Q}^\times-\{\pm 1\}$. A detailed case study by Coates, Fukaya, Kato and Sujatha and V. Dokchitser has led these authors to predict unbounded and strikingly regular growth for the rank of $E$ over $L_n$ in certain cases. The aim of this note is to explain how some of these predictions might be accounted for by Heegner points arising from a varying collection of Shimura curve parametrisations.

Iwasawa's classical asymptotical formula relates the orders of the $p$-parts $X_n$ of the ideal class groups along a $\mathbb{Z}_p$-extension $F_\infty/F$ of a number field $F$ to Iwasawa structural invariants $\la$ and $\mu$ attached to the inverse limit $X_\infty=\varprojlim X_n$. It relies on ``good" descent properties satisfied by $X_n$. If $F$ is abelian and $F_\infty$ is cyclotomic, it is known that the $p$-parts of the orders of the global units modulo circular units $U_n/C_n$ are asymptotically equivalent to the $p$-parts of the ideal class numbers. This suggests that these quotients $U_n/C_n$, so to speak unit class groups, also satisfy good descent properties. We show this directly, \emph{i.e.,} without using Iwasawa's Main Conjecture.

Let $E_{/\qq}$ be an elliptic curve with good ordinary reduction at a prime $p>2$. It has a well-defined Iwasawa $\mu$-invariant $\mu(E)_p$ which encodes part of the information about the growth of the Selmer group $\sel E{K_n}$ as $K_n$ ranges over the subfields of the cyclotomic $\zzp$-extension $K_\infty/\qq$. Ralph Greenberg has conjectured that any such $E$ is isogenous to a curve $E'$ with $\mu(E')_p=0$. In this paper we prove Greenberg's conjecture for infinitely many curves $E$ with a rational $p$-torsion point, $p=3$ or $5$, no two of our examples having isomorphic $p$-torsion. The core of our strategy is a partial explicit evaluation of the global duality pairing for finite flat group schemes over rings of integers.

Suppose $K$ is an imaginary quadratic field and $E$ is an elliptic curve over a number field $F$ with complex multiplication by the ring of integers in $K$. Let $p$ be a rational prime that splits as $\mathfrak{p}_{1}\mathfrak{p}_{2}$ in $K$. Let $E_{p^{n}}$ denote the $p^{n}$-division points on $E$. Assume that $F(E_{p^{n}})$ is abelian over $K$ for all $n\geq 0$. This paper proves that the Pontrjagin dual of the $\mathfrak{p}_{1}^{\infty}$-Selmer group of $E$ over $F(E_{p^{\infty}})$ is a finitely generated free $\Lambda$-module, where $\Lambda$ is the Iwasawa algebra of $\Gal\bigl(F(E_{p^{\infty}})/ F(E_{\mathfrak{p}_{1}^{\infty}\mathfrak{p}_{2}})\bigr)$. It also gives a simple formula for the rank of the Pontrjagin dual as a $\Lambda$-module.

Let $\FF$ be a finite real abelian extension of $\QQ$. Let $M$ be an odd positive integer. For every squarefree positive integer $r$ the prime factors of which are congruent to $1$ modulo $M$ and split completely in $\FF$, the corresponding Kolyvagin class $\kappa_r\in\FF^{\times}/ \FF^{\times M}$ satisfies a remarkable and crucial recursion which for each prime number $\ell$ dividing $r$ determines the order of vanishing of $\kappa_r$ at each place of $\FF$ above $\ell$ in terms of $\kappa_{r/\ell}$. In this note we give the recursion a new and universal interpretation with the help of the double complex method introduced by Anderson and further developed by Das and Ouyang. Namely, we show that the recursion satisfied by Kolyvagin classes is the specialization of a universal recursion independent of $\FF$ satisfied by universal Kolyvagin classes in the group cohomology of the universal ordinary distribution {\it \`a la\/} Kubert tensored with $\ZZ/M\ZZ$. Further, we show by a method involving a variant of the diagonal shift operation introduced by Das that certain group cohomology classes belonging (up to sign) to a basis previously constructed by Ouyang also satisfy the universal recursion.

For an arbitrary finite Galois $p$-extension $L/K$ of $\zp$-cyclotomic number fields of $\CM$-type with Galois group $G = \Gal(L/K)$ such that the Iwasawa invariants $\mu_K^-$, $ \mu_L^-$ are zero, we obtain unconditionally and explicitly the Galois module structure of $\clases$, the minus part of the $p$-subgroup of the class group of $L$. For an arbitrary finite Galois $p$-extension $L/K$ of algebraic function fields of one variable over an algebraically closed field $k$ of characteristic $p$ as its exact field of constants with Galois group $G = \Gal(L/K)$ we obtain unconditionally and explicitly the Galois module structure of the $p$-torsion part of the Jacobian variety $J_L(p)$ associated to $L/k$.