The Lazard formal group, universal congruences and special values of zeta functions

A connection between the theory of formal groups and arithmetic number theory is established. In particular, it is shown how to construct general Almkvist--Meurman--type congruences for the universal Bernoulli polynomials that are related with the Lazard universal formal group \cite{Tempesta1}-\cite{Tempesta3}. Their role in the theory of $L$--genera for multiplicative sequences is illustrated. As an application, sequences of integer numbers are constructed. New congruences are also obtained, useful to compute special values of a new class of Riemann--Hurwitz--type zeta functions.