Frobenius and monodromy operators in rigid analysis, and Drinfel'd's symmetric space

Abstract: We define Frobenius and monodromy operators on the de Rham cohomology of $K$-dagger spaces (rigid spaces with overconvergent structure sheaves) with strictly semistable reduction $Y$, over a complete discrete valuation ring $K$ of mixed characteristic. For this we introduce log rigid cohomology and generalize the so called Hyodo-Kato isomorphism to versions for non-proper $Y$, for non-perfect residue fields, for non-integrally defined coefficients, and for the various strata of $Y$. We apply this to define and investigate crystalline structure elements on the de Rham cohomology of Drinfel'd's symmetric space $X$ and its quotients. Our results are used in a critical way in the recent proof of the monodromy-weight conjecture for quotients of $X$ given by de Shalit.