Etale Cohomology and the Weil Conjecture

This book is concerned with one of the most important developments in algebraic geometry during the last decades. In 1949 AndrA(c) Weil formulated his famous conjectures about the numbers of solutions of diophantine equations in finite fields. He himself proved his conjectures by means of an algebraic theory of Abelian varieties in the one-variable case. In 1960 appeared the first chapter of the "ElA(c)ments de GA(c)ometrie AlgA(c)braique" par A. Grothendieck (en collaboration avec J. DieudonnA(c)). In these "ElA(c)ments" Grothendieck evolved a new foundation of algebraic geometry with the declared aim to come to a proof of the Weil conjectures by means of a new algebraic cohomology theory. Deligne succeded in proving the Weil conjectures on the basis of Grothendiecks ideas. The aim of this "Ergebnisbericht" is to develop as self-contained as possible and as short as possible Grothendiecks 1-adic cohomology theory including Delignes monodromy theory and to present his original proof of the Weil conjectures.