Variation of Tamagawa numbers of semistable abelian varieties in field extensions

We investigate the behaviour of Tamagawa numbers of semistable principally polarised abelian varieties in extensions of local fields. In particular, we give a simple formula for the change of Tamagawa numbers in totally ramified extensions and one that computes Tamagawa numbers up to rational squares in general extensions. As an application, we extend some of the existing results on thep-parity conjecture for Selmer groups of abelian varieties by allowing more general local behaviour. We also give a complete classification of the behaviour of Tamagawa numbers for semistable 2-dimensional principally polarised abelian varieties that is similar to the well-known one for elliptic curves. The appendix explains how to use this classification for Jacobians of genus 2 hyperelliptic curves given by equations of the formy2=f(x), under some simplifying hypotheses.