We define variants of PEL type of the Shimura varieties that appear in the context of the arithmetic Gan–Gross–Prasad (AGGP) conjecture. We formulate for them a version of the AGGP conjecture. We also construct (global and semi-global) integral models of these Shimura varieties and formulate for them conjectures on arithmetic intersection numbers. We prove some of these conjectures in low dimension.

We consider the question of when a rational homology $3$-sphere is rational homology cobordant to a connected sum of lens spaces. We prove that every rational homology cobordism class in the subgroup generated by lens spaces is represented by a unique connected sum of lens spaces whose first homology group injects in the first homology group of any other element in the same class. As a first consequence, we show that several natural maps to the rational homology cobordism group have infinite-rank cokernels. Further consequences include a divisibility condition between the determinants of a connected sum of $2$-bridge knots and any other knot in the same concordance class. Lastly, we use knot Floer homology combined with our main result to obstruct Dehn surgeries on knots from being rationally cobordant to lens spaces.

Rapoport–Zink spaces are deformation spaces for $p$-divisible groups with additional structure. At infinite level, they become preperfectoid spaces. Let ${{\mathscr M}}_{\infty }$ be an infinite-level Rapoport–Zink space of EL type, and let ${{\mathscr M}}_{\infty }^{\circ }$ be one connected component of its geometric fiber. We show that ${{\mathscr M}}_{\infty }^{\circ }$ contains a dense open subset which is cohomologically smooth in the sense of Scholze. This is the locus of $p$-divisible groups which do not have any extra endomorphisms. As a corollary, we find that the cohomologically smooth locus in the infinite-level modular curve $X(p^{\infty })^{\circ }$ is exactly the locus of elliptic curves $E$ with supersingular reduction, such that the formal group of $E$ has no extra endomorphisms.

Cluster algebras give rise to a class of Gorenstein rings which enjoy a large amount of symmetry. Concentrating on the rank 2 cases, we show how cluster varieties can be used to construct many interesting projective algebraic varieties. Our main application is then to construct hundreds of families of Fano 3-folds in codimensions 4 and 5. In particular, for Fano 3-folds in codimension 4 we construct at least one family for 187 of the 206 possible Hilbert polynomials contained in the Graded Ring Database.

We prove equality of the various rational $p$-adic period morphisms for smooth, not necessarily proper, schemes. We start with showing that the $K$-theoretical uniqueness criterion we had found earlier for proper smooth schemes extends to proper finite simplicial schemes in the good reduction case and to cohomology with compact support in the semistable reduction case. It yields the equality of the period morphisms for cohomology with compact support defined using the syntomic, almost étale, and motivic constructions. We continue with showing that the $h$-cohomology period morphism agrees with the syntomic and almost étale period morphisms whenever the latter morphisms are defined (and up to a change of Hyodo–Kato cohomology). We do it by lifting the syntomic and almost étale period morphisms to the $h$-site of varieties over a field, where their equality with the $h$-cohomology period morphism can be checked directly using the Beilinson Poincaré lemma and the case of dimension $0$. This also shows that the syntomic and almost étale period morphisms have a natural extension to the Voevodsky triangulated category of motives and enjoy many useful properties (since so does the $h$-cohomology period morphism).