Vector bundles with numerically flat reduction on rigid analytic varieties and $p$-adic local systems

Abstract: We show how to functorially attach continuous $p$-adic representations of the profinite fundamental group to vector bundles with numerically flat reduction on a proper rigid analytic variety over $\mathbb{C}_p$. This generalizes results by Deninger and Werner for vector bundles on smooth algebraic varieties. Our approach uses fundamental results on the pro-\'etale site of a rigid analytic variety introduced by Scholze. This enables us to get rid of the smoothness condition and to work in the analytic category. Moreover, under some mild conditions, the functor we construct gives a full embedding of the category of vector bundles with numerically flat reduction into the category of continuous $\mathbb{C}_p$-representations. This provides new insights into the $p$-adic Simpson correspondence in the case of a vanishing Higgs-field.