On the connectivity of complex affine hypersurfaces. II (Q1570999): Difference between revisions

Given a polynomial \(f\) on \(\mathbb{C}^{n+1}\), the authors obtain a sharp bound on the connectivity of the affine hypersurfaces \(f^{-1}(c)\), the fibers of \(f\). They decompose \(f\) as a sum of weighted homogeneous components \(f_i\) with respect to a system \(w=(w_0,\dots,w_n)\) of positive integer weights. Let \(e<d\) be the highest degrees with respect to \(w\) occuring in this decomposition and consider the set \(S(f)\) defined by \(\nabla f_d=0 =f_e\). If \(k= \dim S(f)\), then it is proved that the fibers of \(f\) are \((n-1-k)\)-connected. An example shows that this considerably strengthens an earlier result of the first author [part I of this paper, Topology 29, No. 4, 511-514, (1990; Zbl 0771.57010)], where \(w=(1,\dots,1)\). As a consequence, gaps in the cohomology of certain complexes of differential forms associated to \(f\) are exhibited. Moreover, it is shown that the singular set \(\nabla f=0\) has dimension \(\leq k\). The proof is based on a result due to \textit{H. A. Hamm} [Proc. Symp. Pure Math. 40, Part 1, 547-557 (1983; Zbl 0525.14011)] describing the homotopy types of complete intersections in terms of relative cell complexes. The authors demonstrate by an example that this result needs an additional hypothesis.