The étale-open topology and the stable fields conjecture

Abstract

For an arbitrary field $K$ and a $K$-variety $V$, we introduce the étale-open topology on the set $V(K)$ of $K$-points of $V$. This topology agrees with the Zariski topology, Euclidean topology, or valuation topology when $K$ is separably closed, real closed, or $p$-adically closed, respectively. Topological properties of the étale-open topology correspond to algebraic properties of $K$. For example, the étale-open topology on ${\mathbb{A}}^1(K)$ is not discrete if and only if $K$ is large. As an application, we show that a large stable field is separably closed.