In this article we propose a geometric description of Arthur packets for p-adic groups using vanishing cycles of perverse sheaves. Our approach is inspired by the 1992 book by Adams, Barbasch and Vogan on the Langlands classification of admissible representations of real groups and follows the direction indicated by Vogan in his 1993 paper on the Langlands correspondence. Using vanishing cycles, we introduce and study a functor from the category of equivariant perverse sheaves on the moduli space of certain Langlands parameters to local systems on the regular part of the conormal bundle for this variety. In this article we establish the main properties of this functor and show that it plays the role of microlocalization in the work of Adams, Barbasch and Vogan. We use this to define ABV-packets for pure rational forms of p-adic groups and propose a geometric description of the transfer coefficients that appear in Arthur's main local result in the endoscopic classification of representations. This article includes conjectures modelled on Vogan's work, especially the prediction that Arthur packets are ABV-packets for p-adic groups. We gather evidence for these conjectures by verifying them in numerous examples.

The study of the present paper is inspired by Gangl, Kaneko and Zagier's result of the connection with double zeta values and modular forms. We introduce double Eisenstein series $E_{r,s}$ in positive characteristic with double zeta values $\zeta_A(r,s)$ as their constant term and compute the t-expansions of the double Eisenstein series. Moreover, we derive the shuffle relations of double Eisenstein series which match the shuffle relations of double zeta values in \cite{Huei2015}.

We enhance the efficient congruencing method for estimating Vinogradov’s integral for moments of order 2$s$, with $${1\leqslant s\leqslant k^{2}-1}$$ . In this way, we prove the main conjecture for such even moments when $${1\leqslant s\leqslant \tfrac{1}{4}(k+1)^{2}}$$ , showing that the moments exhibit strongly diagonal behaviour in this range. There are improvements also for larger values of$s$, these finding application to the asymptotic formula in Waring’s problem.

For every affine variety over a global function field, we show that the set of its points with coordinates in an arbitrary rank-one multiplicative subgroup of this function field is topologically dense in the set of its points with coordinates in the topological closure of this subgroup in the product of the multiplicative group of those local completions of this function field over all but finitely many places.

On Shimura varieties of orthogonal type over totally real fields, we prove a product formula and the modularity of Kudla’s generating series of special cycles in Chow groups.