Arrangements and Milnor fibers (Q1345921)

Let \({\mathcal A}\) be an arrangement of hyperplanes in \(\mathbb{C}^ \ell\). Let \(L ({\mathcal A})\) be the set of intersections of the hyperplanes of \({\mathcal A}\). Let \(f\) be a homogeneous polynomial which is generic with respect to \({\mathcal A}\). This implies that \(f\) and all its restrictions to \(X\in L({\mathcal A})\) have an isolated critical point at the origin. Let \(F = f^{-1} (1)\) be the Milnor fiber of \(f\). The arrangement \({\mathcal A}\) stratifies \(\mathbb{C}^ \ell\) and induces a stratification on \(F\). We use Morse theory to construct a finite cell complex \(\Gamma = \Gamma ({\mathcal A},F)\) which is a deformation retract of \(F\) which respects this stratification in the sense that \(\Gamma \cap X\) is a subcomplex of \(\Gamma\) and \(\Gamma \cap X\) is a deformation retract of \(F \cap X\) for each \(X \in L ({\mathcal A})\). A lower bound for the number of critical points is obtained by topological methods and an upper bound by using a chain complex of logarithmic differential forms. We call \({\mathcal A}\) pure if each cohomology group of this complex vanishes below the top dimension. In this case the two bounds are equal and we obtain explicit formulas for the number of cells in \(\Gamma\) in terms of the combinatorics of \({\mathcal A}\) and the degree of \(f\). Examples include the Coxeter complexes and similar complexes for higher degree invariants of Coxeter groups constructed in this paper.