Local systems on diamonds and $p$-adic vector bundles

Abstract: We use Scholze's framework of diamonds to gain new insights in correspondences between $p$-adic vector bundles and local systems. Such correspondences arise in the context of $p$-adic Simpson theory in the case of vanishing Higgs fields. In the present paper we provide a detailed analysis of local systems on diamonds for the \'etale, pro-\'etale, and the $v$-topology, and study the structure sheaves for all three topologies in question. Applied to proper adic spaces of finite type over $\mathbb{C}_p$ this enables us to prove a category equivalence between $\mathbb{C}_p$-local systems with integral models, and modules under the $v$-structure sheaf which modulo each $p^n$ can be trivialized on a proper cover. The flexibility of the $v$-topology together with a descent result on integral models of local systems allows us to prove that the trivializability condition in the module category may be checked on any normal proper cover. This result leads to an extension of the parallel transport theory by Deninger and the second author to vector bundles with numerically flat reduction on a proper normal cover.