Symmetry and parity in Frobenius action on cohomology

Abstract

We prove that the Newton polygons of Frobenius on the crystalline cohomology of proper smooth varieties satisfy a symmetry that results, in the case of projective smooth varieties, from Poincar\'e duality and the hard Lefschetz theorem. As a corollary, we deduce that the Betti numbers in odd degrees of any proper smooth variety over a field are even (a consequence of Hodge symmetry in characteristic zero), answering an old question of Serre. Then we give a generalization and a refinement for arbitrary varieties over finite fields, in response to later questions of Serre and of Katz.