Varieties with an action of a reductive group such that the Borel subgroup has an open orbit are called spherical. Spherical varieties are a unifying theme behind many analytic techniques in the theory of automorphic forms, such as the relative trace formula and integral representations of L-functions. After briefly surveying these methods - for which a general and systematic theory is missing - in order to justify this claim, I prove a general result on the representation theory of spherical varieties for split groups over p-adic fields: Irreducible quotients of the "unramified summand" of Cc&#8734(X) (where X is the spherical variety) are "roughly" parametrized by the quotient of a complex torus by a finite reflection group. This generalizes the classical parametrization of the "unramified spectrum" of G by semisimple conjugacy classes in its Langlands dual, and is compatible with recent results of D.Gaitsgory & D.Nadler which assign a "Langlands dual group" to every spherical variety. The main tool in the proof is an action, defined by F.Knop, of the Weyl group of G on the set of Borel orbits on X.

The number of solutions to a set of polynomial equations defined over a
finite field of $q=p^a$ elements is encoded by its zeta function, which is a
rational function in one variable. A question of fundamental interest is
how to compute this function efficiently. We describe a method to solve
this problem (due to Wan) using a $p$-adic trace formula of Dwork. We
examine how well this method works in practice on some explicit examples
coming from a certain class of varieties known as $\Delta$-regular
hypersurfaces. Our experience suggests several potential avenues of further
research.

We discuss a refinement of the Rubin-Stark Conjecture for abelian L-functions of arbitrary order of vanishing at s=0. This generalizes Gross's v-adic refinement of the abelian, order of vanishing 1, integral Stark Conjecture and predicts a link between special values of derivatives of p-adic and global L-functions. Time permitting, we will also show how our refinement relates to a recent strengthening of Gross's Conjecture due to Tate.