Characteristic varieties of graph manifolds and quasi-projectivity of fundamental groups of algebraic links (Q2210167)

This paper considers the question of global versus local algebraic fundamental groups. A major question is to decide if a local group is a global group (i.e. the fundamental group of a quasi-projective variety). When local implies global we say that we have a quasi-projective fundamental group. The work focuses on the study of a quasi-projectivity obstruction coming from characteristic varieties of a group as well as another obstruction, where the groups are the fundamental group of the complement of a link \(L\) of certain graph manifolds \(M\). More precisely, the authors consider the special class of graph manifolds made by oriented \(S^1\)-bundles over oriented surfaces. A pluming graph \(\Gamma\) codifies a graph manifold and a link with \(r\)-components. They show: Theorem 3.2. The fundamental group of \(M\backslash{L}\) is generated by (G1)-(G4) with relations (R1)-(R4). As a consequence, this group admits a presentation with as many generators as relations. If \(r>0\), one relation in (R2) can be omitted. The description of the generators and relations are too technical to be explicitly stated here. The main obstruction theory used is in the spirit of the work by \textit{S. Papadima} [``Global versus local algebraic fundamental groups'', in: \textit{M. Farber} (ed.) et al., Oberwolfach Rep. 4, No. 3, 2321--2360 (2007; Zbl 1177.58004)], and the authors show: Corollary 3.12 If either \(\Gamma\) has two vertices with positive genus or it has one such a vertex and \(b_1(\Gamma)>0\) then \(G\) is not quasi-projective. Applications are provided using the result above where the authors complete Papadima's proof of the following result: Theorem: the fundamental group of an algebraic link in \(S^3\) is global if and only if it comes from a germ of a plane curve singularity having the topological type of a quasi-homogeneous curve. Also as an application the authors compare characteristic varieties and monodromy for generalized A'Campo's links. The paper contains a quite detailed description of the results related to the question studied on the paper. Also many examples are provided, which are very helpful to follow the work, which illustrate the techniques and concepts developed in the paper.