A torsion formula for the epsilon factor of a character on a surface (Q836902)

Let \(X/{\mathbb F}_q\) be a smooth proper surface over a finite field of characteristic \(p>2\) and let \({\mathcal F}\) be a rank \(1\) smooth \(l\)-adic sheaf (\(l\neq p\)) on a dense open subset \(U\subset X\). The étale cohomology with compact support \(H_c^*(U_{\overline{\mathbb F}_q},{\mathcal F})\) carries a natural action of the absolute Galois group of \({\mathbb F}_q\), in particular an action by the geometric Frobenius \(\varphi\). According to Grothendieck the associated \(L\)-function \(L(U,{\mathcal F},t)\) is a rational function and can be computed as \[ L(U,{\mathcal F},t)=\det(1-t{\varphi},H_c^*(U_{\overline{\mathbb F}_q},{\mathcal F}))^{-1}. \] It satisfies the functional equation \[ L(U,{\mathcal F},t)={\varepsilon}_0(U,{\mathcal F})t^{{\chi}_c(U,{\mathcal F})}L(X, Rj_*\check{\mathcal F},\frac{1}{tq^d}). \] Here \(\check{\mathcal F}\) is the naive dual to \({\mathcal F}\) and \(j:U\to X\) the open immersion, \({\chi}_c(U,{\mathcal F})\) the Euler characteristic of \(H_c^*(U_{\overline{\mathbb F}_q},{\mathcal F})\) and \(d=\dim(X)\). The most interesting ingredient is the `global constant' or `epsilon factor' \({\varepsilon}_0(U,{\mathcal F})=\det(-{\varphi}, H_c^*(U_{\overline{\mathbb F}_q},{\mathcal F}))^{-1}\). Suppose that \(X-D\) is a divisor with normal crossings. Explicit formulas for \({\varepsilon}_0(U,{\mathcal F})\) (in terms of differential invariants) had been obtained for \({\mathcal F}\) which are tamely ramified along \(D\) by S. Saito and T. Saito. For \({\mathcal F}\) wildly ramified along \(D\) the problems become significantly harder, and as a first approximation, Kato and Saito conjectured a torsion formula for the epsilon factor for such \({\mathcal F}\). In this paper the conjecture of Kato and Saito is proven for two particular classes of wildly ramified \({\mathcal F}\): (1) \({\mathcal F}\) is associated to a character of order \(np\) with \((n,p)=1\) (an Artin-Schreier character twisted by a tame character), and (2) \({\mathcal F}\) is trivialized on a covering \(Y/X\) which on generic fibres has only separable residual extensions. The proof relies on the construction of certain good Lefschetz pencils, fibring \(X\) over \({\mathbb P}^1\). It then uses the product formula of Deligne-Laumon on \({\mathbb P}^1\) and the main result of the author's paper [``Formule du conducteur pour un caractère \(l\)-adique'', Compos. Math. 145, No. 3, 687--717 (2009; Zbl 1172.14015)].