Derived $\ell$-adic zeta functions

Abstract

We lift the classical Hasse--Weil zeta function of varieties over a finite field to a map of spectra with domain the Grothendieck spectrum of varieties constructed by Campbell and Zakharevich. We use this map to prove that the Grothendieck spectrum of varieties contains nontrivial geometric information in its higher homotopy groups by showing that the map $\mathbb{S} \to K(Var_k)$ induced by the inclusion of $0$-dimensional varieties is not surjective on $π_1$ for a wide range of fields $k$. The methods used in this paper should generalize to lifting other motivic measures to maps of $K$-theory spectra.