Kato's Ramification filtration via de Rham-Witt complex and applications

Given an $F$-finite regular scheme $X$ of positive characteristic and a simple normal crossing divisor $E$ on $X$, we introduce a filtration on the de Rham-Witt complex $W_m{\mathrm{\Omega }}_{X\setminus E}^{\bullet }$. When $X$ is the spectrum of a henselian discrete valuation ring $A$ with quotient field $K$, this extends the classical filtration on $W_m(K)$ due to Brylinski. We show that Kato’s ramification filtration on $H_{\text{et}}^q(X\setminus E,\text{Q}\mathrm{/}\mathbb{Z}(q-1))$ for $q\ge 1$ admits an explicit description in terms of the above filtration of the de Rham-Witt complex of $X\setminus E$. When $q=1$, this specializes to the results of Kato and Kerz-Saito. As applications, we prove refinements of the duality theorem of Jannsen-Saito-Zhao for smooth projective schemes over finite fields and the duality theorem of Zhao for semi-stable schemes over henselian discrete valuation rings of positive characteristic with finiteresidue fields. We also prove a modulus version of the duality theorem of Ekedahl. As another application, we prove Lefschetz theorems for Kato’s ramification filtrations for smooth projective varieties over $F$-finite fields. This extends a result of Kerz-Saito for $H^1$ to higher cohomology. Similar results are proven for the Brauer group.