Cohomological theory of crystals over function fields

This book develops a new cohomological theory for schemes in positive characteristic p and it applies this theory to give a purely algebraic proof of a conjecture of Goss on the rationality of certain L-functions arising in the arithmetic of function fields. These L-functions are power series over a certain ring A, associated to any family of Drinfeld A-modules or, more generally, of A-motives on a variety of finite type over the finite field