Kodaira-Saito vanishing via Higgs bundles in positive characteristic

Abstract: The goal of this paper is to give a new proof of a special case of the Kodaira-Saito vanishing theorem for a variation of Hodge structure on the complement of a divisor with normal crossings. The proof does not use the theory of mixed Hodge modules, but instead reduces it to a more general vanishing theorem for semistable nilpotent Higgs bundles, which is then proved by using some facts about Higgs bundles in positive characteristic.