On $p$-adic absolute Hodge cohomology and syntomic coefficients, I

We interpret syntomic cohomology of Nekov\'a\v{r}-Nizio{\l} as a $p$-adic absolute Hodge cohomology. This is analogous to the interpretation of Deligne-Beilinson cohomology as an absolute Hodge cohomology by Beilinson and generalizes the results of Bannai and Chiarellotto, Ciccioni, Mazzari in the good reduction case, and of Yamada in the semistable reduction case. This interpretation yields a simple construction of the syntomic descent spectral sequence and its degeneration for proper and smooth varieties. We introduce syntomic coefficients and show that in dimension zero they form a full triangulated subcategory of the derived category of potentially semistable Galois representations. Along the way, we obtain $p$-adic realizations of mixed motives including $p$-adic comparison isomorphisms. We apply this to the motivic fundamental group generalizing results of Olsson and Vologodsky.