Kohomologie von Periodenbereichen über endlichen Körpern (Q4518458)

This paper is the published version of the author's doctoral dissertation. Accomplished at the University of Cologne, Germany, this work is devoted to the cohomological study of objects which were introduced by the author's academic advisor, \textit{M. Rapoport} (Cologne), a few years ago [``Period domains over finite and local fields''. Proc. Symp. Pure Math. 62, 361--381 (1997; Zbl 0924.14009)]. Namely, motivated by Ph. A. Griffiths's construction of period domains for complex algebraic manifolds, on the one hand, and by the construction of moduli spaces for vector bundles on the other, M. Rapoport has defined period domains for \(p\)-adic and finite fields. These period domains appear as certain open subspaces of generalized flag varieties defined by suitable semistability conditions, and the structure of their \(l\)-adic cohomology is of great interest. In the work under review, the author developes a very original method to compute the \(l\)-adic cohomology (with compact support) of the period domain of a finite field \(k\). His cohomological structure theorem confirms an earlier conjecture due to Kottwitz and Rapoport, which back then was based upon their computation of the Euler-Poincaré characteristic of a period domain of a finite field. However, the author's approach to computing the cohomology directly (and explicitly) is completely different from the one developed by his forerunners, whereas his final result shows that there is a strong analogy with the formula of \textit{P. Schneider} and \textit{U. Stuhler}, who computed the \(l\)-adic cohomology of the so-called Drinfeld half-space \(\Omega^d\) in the case of a \(p\)-adic ground field [``The cohomology of \(p\)-adic symmetric spaces'', Invent. Math. 105, No. 1, 47--122 (1991; Zbl 0751.14015)]. The exposition of this highly original work is very lucid, detailed, and nearly self-contained.