Appears in collection : Conférences Paris Pékin Tokyo

Let G be a semi-simple and simply connected group and X an algebraic curve. We consider $Bun_G(X)$, the moduli space of G-bundles on X. In their celebrated paper, Atiyah and Bott gave a formula for the cohomology of $Bun_G$, namely $H^_(Bun_G)=Sym(H__(X)\otimes V)$, where V is the space of generators for $H^*_G(pt)$. When we take our ground field to be a finite field, the Atiyah-Bott formula implies the Tamagawa number conjecture for the function field of X. The caveat here is that the A-B proof uses the interpretation of $Bun_G$ as the space of connection forms modulo gauge transformations, and thus only works over complex numbers (but can be extend to any field of characteristic zero). In the talk we will outline an algebro-geometric proof that works over any ground field. As its main geometric ingredient, it uses the fact that the space of rational maps from X to G is homologically contractible. Because of the nature of the latter statement, the proof necessarily uses tools from higher category theory. So, it can be regarded as an example how the latter can be used to prove something concrete: a construction at the level of 2-categories leads to an equality of numbers.