Hodge-Witt cohomology and Witt-rational singularities (Q1946049)

This paper is about singularities of algebraic varieties. In characteristic zero, where resolution of singularities is available, an important class of singularities is given by rational singularities. Quotient singularities are examples of rational singularities. In positive characteristic, the notion of rational singularity is not well-suited; resolution of singularities is not available at present, and quotient singularities are not even rational. In this paper, the authors propose to replace the structure sheaf \(\mathcal{O}_X\) by the sheaf of Witt vectors \(W\mathcal{O}_X\) and a definition of Witt-rational singularities is introduced. This notion of Witt-rational singularities is more restrictive than the one introduced earlier by \textit{M. Blickle} and \textit{H. Esnault} [Pure Appl. Math. Q. 4, No. 3, 729--741 (2008; Zbl 1162.14015)] (although the author conjecture that their definition agrees with the one of loc. cit.). The main result is that topological finite quotients have Witt-rational singularities. (An integral normal \(k\)-scheme \(X\) is a finite quotient if there exists a finite and surjective morphism from a smooth \(k\)-scheme \(Y\rightarrow X\). A normal integral \(k\)-scheme \(X\) is a topological finite quotient if there exists a finite, surjective and purely inseparable morphism \(u : X \rightarrow X'\), where \(X'\) is a finite quotient.) A crucial ingredient in the proof consists in showing that relative Hodge--Witt cohomology can be endowed with an action of correspondences. Moreover, this paper contains numerous results concerning Witt-vector cohomology. For instance, it is shown that the Witt-vector cohomology of a smooth, proper scheme is a birational invariant.