Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 December 2007
In this paper, we construct a theory of geometric Euler systems, complementary to the arithmetic theory of Rubin, Kato and Perrin-Riou. We show that geometric Euler systems can be used to prove the finiteness of certain Galois representations of weight zero and we discuss a conjectural framework for the existence of geometric Euler systems for motivic Galois representations. We give applications to adjoint Selmer groups of certain classical and Drinfeld modular forms.