Let $G$ be a split reductive group over the ring of integers in a $p$-adic field with residue field $\mathbf {F}$. Fix a representation $\overline {\rho }$ of the absolute Galois group of an unramified extension of $\mathbf {Q}_p$, valued in $G(\mathbf {F})$. We study the crystalline deformation ring for $\overline {\rho }$ with a fixed $p$-adic Hodge type that satisfies an analog of the Fontaine–Laffaille condition for $G$-valued representations. In particular, we give a root theoretic condition on the $p$-adic Hodge type which ensures that the crystalline deformation ring is formally smooth. Our result improves on all known results for classical groups not of type A and provides the first such results for exceptional groups.

Let $n$ be either $2$ or an odd integer greater than $1$, and fix a prime $p>2(n+1)$. Under standard ‘adequate image’ assumptions, we show that the set of components of $n$-dimensional $p$-adic potentially semistable local Galois deformation rings that are seen by potentially automorphic compatible systems of polarizable Galois representations over some CM field is independent of the particular global situation. We also (under the same assumption on $n$) improve on the main potential automorphy result of Barnet-Lamb et al. [Potential automorphy and change of weight, Ann. of Math. (2) 179(2) (2014), 501–609], replacing ‘potentially diagonalizable’ by ‘potentially globally realizable’.

We prove the modularity of minimally ramified ordinary residually reducible p-adic Galois representations of an imaginary quadratic field F under certain assumptions. We first exhibit conditions under which the residual representation is unique up to isomorphism. Then we prove the existence of deformations arising from cuspforms on GL2(AF) via the Galois representations constructed by Taylor et al. We establish a sufficient condition (in terms of the non-existence of certain field extensions which in many cases can be reduced to a condition on an L-value) for the universal deformation ring to be a discrete valuation ring and in that case we prove an R=T theorem. We also study reducible deformations and show that no minimal characteristic 0 reducible deformation exists.

Let K be an arbitrary number field, and let ρ : Gal(/K) → GL2(E) be a nearly ordinary irreducible geometric Galois representation. In this paper, we study the nearly ordinary deformations of ρ. When K is totally real and ρ is modular, results of Hida imply that the nearly ordinary deformation space associated to ρ contains a Zariski dense set of points corresponding to ‘automorphic’ Galois representations. We conjecture that if K is not totally real, then this is never the case, except in three exceptional cases, corresponding to: (1) ‘base change’, (2) ‘CM’ forms, and (3) ‘even’ representations. The latter case conjecturally can only occur if the image of ρ is finite. Our results come in two flavours. First, we prove a general result for Artin representations, conditional on a strengthening of the Leopoldt Conjecture. Second, when K is an imaginary quadratic field, we prove an unconditional result that implies the existence of ‘many’ positive-dimensional components (of certain deformation spaces) that do not contain infinitely many classical points. Also included are some speculative remarks about ‘p-adic functoriality’, as well as some remarks on how our methods should apply to n-dimensional representations of Gal(/ℚ) when n > 2.