We study the étale cohomology of Hilbert modular varieties, building on the methods introduced by Caraiani and Scholze for unitary Shimura varieties. We obtain the analogous vanishing theorem: in the ‘generic’ case, the cohomology with torsion coefficients is concentrated in the middle degree. We also probe the structure of the cohomology beyond the generic case, obtaining bounds on the range of degrees where cohomology with torsion coefficients can be non-zero. The proof is based on the geometric Jacquet–Langlands functoriality established by Tian and Xiao and avoids trace formula computations for the cohomology of Igusa varieties. As an application, we show that, when $p$ splits completely in the totally real field and under certain technical assumptions, the $p$-adic local Langlands correspondence for $\mathrm {GL}_2(\mathbb {Q}_p)$ occurs in the completed homology of Hilbert modular varieties.

We show that the completed Hecke algebra of $p$-adic modular forms is isomorphic to the completed Hecke algebra of continuous $p$-adic automorphic forms for the units of the quaternion algebra ramified at $p$ and $\infty$. This gives an affirmative answer to a question posed by Serre in a 1987 letter to Tate. The proof is geometric, and lifts a mod $p$ argument due to Serre: we evaluate modular forms by identifying a quaternionic double-coset with a fiber of the Hodge–Tate period map, and extend functions off of the double-coset using fake Hasse invariants. In particular, this gives a new proof, independent of the classical Jacquet–Langlands correspondence, that Galois representations can be attached to classical and $p$-adic quaternionic eigenforms.

Igusa varieties are smooth varieties in positive characteristic p which are closely related to Shimura varieties and Rapoport–Zink spaces. One motivation for studying Igusa varieties is to analyse the representations in the cohomology of Shimura varieties which may be ramified at p. The main purpose of this work is to stabilize the trace formula for the cohomology of Igusa varieties arising from a PEL datum of type (A) or (C). Our proof is unconditional thanks to the recent proof of the fundamental lemma by Ngô, Waldspurger and many others.

An earlier work of Kottwitz, which inspired our work and proves the stable trace formula for the special fibres of PEL Shimura varieties with good reduction, provides an explicit way to stabilize terms at ∞. Stabilization away from p and ∞ is carried out by the usual Langlands–Shelstad transfer as in work of Kottwitz. The key point of our work is to develop an explicit method to handle the orbital integrals at p. Our approach has the technical advantage that we do not need to deal with twisted orbital integrals or the twisted fundamental lemma.

One application of our formula, among others, is the computation of the arithmetic cohomology of some compact PEL-type Shimura varieties of type (A) with non-trivial endoscopy. This is worked out in a preprint of the author's entitled ‘Galois representations arising from some compact Shimura varieties’.