Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 October 2021
We develop a dimension theory for coadmissible $\widehat {\mathcal {D}}$-modules on rigid analytic spaces and study those which are of minimal dimension, in analogy to the theory of holonomic
$\mathcal {D}$-modules in the algebraic setting. We discuss a number of pathologies contained in this subcategory (modules of infinite length, infinite-dimensional fibres). We prove stability results for closed immersions and the duality functor, and show that all higher direct images of integrable connections restricted to a Zariski open subspace are coadmissible of minimal dimension. It follows that the local cohomology sheaves
$\underline {H}^{i}_Z(\mathcal {M})$ with support in a closed analytic subset
$Z$ of
$X$ are also coadmissible of minimal dimension for any integrable connection
$\mathcal {M}$ on
$X$.
The first and second authors acknowledge support from the EPSRC grant EP/L005190/1.