Local Base Change via Tate Cohomology

In this paper we propose a new way to realize cyclic base change (a special case of Langlands functoriality) for prime degree extensions of characteristic zero local fields. Let $F\mathrm{/}E$ be a prime degree $l$ extension of local fields of residue characteristic $p\mathrm{\ne }l$. Let $\pi$ be an irreducible cuspidal $l$-adic representation of ${\mathrm{G}\mathrm{L}}_n(E)$ and $\rho$ be an irreducible cuspidal $l$-adic representation of ${\mathrm{G}\mathrm{L}}_n(F)$ which is Galois-invariant. Under some minor technical conditions on $\pi$ and $\rho$ (for instance, we assume that both are level zero) we prove that the $\bmod l$-reductions$r_l(\pi)$and$r_l(\rho)$ are in base change if and only if the Tate cohomology of $\rho$ with respect to the Galois action is isomorphic, as a modular representation of ${\mathrm{G}\mathrm{L}}_n(E)$, to the Frobenius twist of $r_l(\pi )$. This proves a special case of a conjecture of Treumann and Venkatesh as they investigate the relationship between linkage and Langlands functoriality.