# Crystalline analogue of perverse sheaves

Consider a variety $X$ over a field $k$ and let $\ell$ be a prime different from the characteristic of $k$. One has the derived category $D(X, Q_{\ell})$ of $\ell$-adic sheaves. There are very important abelian subcategories (of perverse sheaves) corresponding to $t$-structures given by various perversity conditions.

Question: What is the precise crystalline analogue of $D(X, Q_{\ell})$ and the subcategories of perverse sheaves? Here I am thinking of crystalline as being some sort of "$p$-adic sheaves" where $p$ is the characteristic of $k$. Perhaps one needs to assume $k$ is perfect..

Berthelot's theory of $\mathcal D^{\dagger}$-modules on $X$ is one possible answer. –  Emerton Aug 31 '11 at 2:59
Your question seems to contain an implicit assumption that analogues are unique. It is not clear to me that for any choice of formalism you will get precise analogues of all the theorems you see in the $\ell$-adic world.
If $k$ is the complex field, you can apply the Riemann-Hilbert correspondence to get an equivalence between regular holonomic $\mathcal{D}_X$-modules and middle-perverse sheaves in the analytic topology with complex coefficients. Then, you can look for a $p$-adic analogue of regular holonomic $\mathcal{D}_X$-modules, and as Emerton commented, one possible answer is provided by Berthelot's theory of $\mathcal{D}^\dagger$-modules. Caro has some work on the ArXiv on overholonomic modules that produces the same sort of finiteness under smooth proper maps you get from the $\ell$-adic setting, but I do not know enough about this field to commment further.