The Drinfeld stratification for ${\rm GL}_n$

We define a stratification of Deligne--Lusztig varieties and their parahoric analogues which we call the Drinfeld stratification. In the setting of inner forms of GLn, we study the cohomology of these strata and give a complete description of the unique closed stratum. We state precise conjectures on the representation-theoretic behavior of the stratification. We expect this stratification to play a central role in the investigation of geometric constructions of representations of $p$-adic groups.