Cohomology and geometry of Deligne--Lusztig varieties for ${\rm GL}_n$

Abstract

We give a description of the cohomology groups of the structure sheaf on smooth compactifications $\overline{X}(w)$ of Deligne--Lusztig varieties $X(w)$ for ${\rm GL}_n$, for all elements $w$ in the Weyl group. As a consequence, we obtain the ${\rm mod}\ p^m$ and integral $p$-adic étale cohomology of $\overline{X}(w)$. Moreover, using our result for $\overline{X}(w)$ and a spectral sequence associated to a stratification of $\overline{X}(w)$, we deduce the ${\rm mod}\ p^m$ and integral $p$-adic étale cohomology with compact support of $X(w)$. In our proof of the main theorem, in addition to considering the Demazure--Hansen smooth compactifications of $X(w)$, we show that a similar class of constructions provide smooth compactifications of $X(w)$ in the case of ${\rm GL}_n$. Furthermore, we show in the appendix that the Zariski closure of $X(w)$, for any connected reductive group $G$ and any $w$, has pseudo-rational singularities.