Characteristic class and the epsilon factor of an \'etale sheaf

Abstract

We prove a twist formula for the epsilon factor of a constructible sheaf on a projective smooth variety over a finite field in terms of characteristic class of the sheaf. This formula is a modified version of the formula conjectured by Kato and Saito in [Ann. Math., 168 (2008):33-96, Conjecture 4.3.11]. We give two applications of the twist formula. Firstly, we prove that the characteristic classes of constructible \'etale sheaves on projective smooth varieties over a finite field are compatible with proper push-forward. Secondly, we show that the two Swan classes in the literature are the same on proper smooth surfaces over a finite field.