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Topologies de Grothendieck, descente, quotients

In this note, we present a few existence theorems for the quotient of a scheme by the action of a group. The first two sections are devoted to Grothendieck topologies and descent theory. The third one is dealing with quotients: we first give direct and (almost) complete proofs for the main existence results of SGA 3, exposé V. Then we discuss some specific situations: the quotient of an algebraic group over a field by a subgroup, the quotient of a group by the normalizer of a smooth subgroup, and quotients of affine schemes by free actions of diagonalizable groups. From place to place, the original proofs have been slightly improved (e.g. with the use of algebraic spaces). This note grew out of lectures given by the author in the CIRM (Luminy) during the Summer School "Schémas en groupes" in 2011.