Local monodromy of p-adic differential equations: an overview

Abstract

This primarily expository article collects together some facts from the literature about the monodromy of differential equations on a p-adic (rigid analytic) annulus, though often with simpler proofs. These include Matsuda's classification of quasi-unipotent nabla-modules, the Christol-Mebkhout construction of the ramification filtration, and the Christol-Dwork Frobenius antecedent theorem. We also briefly discuss the p-adic local monodromy theorem without proof.