Local cohomology along exceptional sets (Q1070069)

Let \({\mathcal F}\) be a locally free coherent sheaf of a reduced complex space of dimension n. Let E be a closed analytic subset. To compute local cohomology along E one has natural homomorphisms \(H^ i_ E(X;{\mathcal F})\to \lim_{\to}Ext^ i_{{\mathcal O}_ X}({\mathcal O}_ X/{\mathcal J}^ m,{\mathcal F})\) and duality homomorphisms \(H^ i_ E(X;{\mathcal F})\to (H^{n-i}(E,{\mathcal F}^*\otimes \omega_ X))'\) where \({\mathcal J}\) is an ideal sheaf defining E and \(\omega_ X\) denotes the dualizing sheaf. The aim of this note is to prove that above homomorphisms are isomorphisms for \(i<n\) provided that E is an exceptional subset. The result may be considered as the complex analytic analogy to Grothendieck's computation of local cohomology in terms of the ''Ext''-functor and a duality theorem due to \textit{Lipman} [Ann. Math. 107 (1985)] which combines local and global Grothendieck duality and Hartshorne's formal duality theorem in algebraic geometry. However, there is no straightforward way to carry over their arguments to the analytic case. The crucial point is that the local cohomology sheaves are quasi-coherent in case of locally Noetherian preschemes but not necessarily in case of analytic spaces. To overcome this difficulty, the restriction to exceptional subsets is of fundamental significance. At first it allows to express local cohomology along E via a spectral sequence in terms of local cohomology supported on singular points. Secondly, one may replace local cohomology by cohomology with compact support showing that above duality is induced by Serre duality.