Inductive freeness of Ziegler's canonical multiderivations for reflection arrangements (Q1655812)

In this interesting and nicely written paper the authors study the so-called inductive freeness from a viewpoint of multiarrangements. Let \(\mathcal{A}\) be a hyperplane arrangement in \(\mathbb{K}^{\ell}\) and let \(S = \mathbb{K}[x_{1}, \dots, x_{\ell}]\). For \(H \in \mathcal{A}\) we fix a homogeneous linear form \(\alpha_{H}\) such that \(H = {\ker}(\alpha_{H})\) and let \(Q:= \prod_{H \in \mathcal{A}} \alpha_{H}\) be the defining polynomial of \(\mathcal{A}\). Moreover, we denote by \(\mathrm{Der}(S)\) the \(S\)-module of algebraic \(\mathbb{K}\)-derivations of \(S\). The module of \(\mathcal{A}\)-derivations of \(\mathcal{A}\) is defined by \[\mathrm D(\mathcal{A}) := \{ \theta \in\mathrm{Der}(S) : \theta(\alpha_{H}) \in \alpha_{H} S \, \text{ for each } H \in \mathcal{A}\}.\] We say that \(\mathcal{A}\) is free if the module \(\mathrm D(\mathcal{A})\) is a free \(S\)-module. If \(\mathcal{A}\) is free, then \(\mathrm D(\mathcal{A})\) admits a basis of \(\ell\) homogeneous derivations \(\theta_{1}, \dots, \theta_{\ell}\). While \(\theta_{i}\)'s are not unique, their polynomial degrees are unique, and this multiset is called the set of exponents of the free arrangement, denoted by \(\exp(\mathcal{A})\). Terao's Addition-Deletion theorem for triplets suggests the notion of inductively free arrangements. We denote by \(\Phi_{\ell}\) an empty arrangement. Definition. The class \(\mathcal{IF}\) of inductively free arrangements is the smallest class of arrangements subject to a) \(\Phi_{\ell} \in \mathcal{IF}\) for each \(\ell >0\); b) if there exists a hyperplane \(H_{0} \in \mathcal{A}\) such that both \(\mathcal{A}'\) and \(\mathcal{A}''\) belong to \(\mathcal{IF}\), and \(\exp(\mathcal{A}'') \subseteq\exp(\mathcal{A}')\), then \(\mathcal{A}\) also belongs to \(\mathcal{IF}\). In order to formulate main results, we also need a brief introduction to multiarrangements \((\mathcal{A},m)\), where \(m: \mathcal{A} \rightarrow \mathbb{Z}_{\geq 0}\) is a multiplicity function associating to each hyperplane \(H\) a non-negative integer. The first choice of such a multiplicity is \textit{canonical} in the sense of Ziegler. Let \(\mathcal{A}\) be an arrangement and we fix a hyperplane \(H_{0} \in \mathcal{A}\). Consider the restriction arrangement \(\mathcal{A}''\) with respect to \(H_{0}\), then we define the canonical multiplicity \(\kappa\) on \(\mathcal{A}''\) as follows. For \(Y \in \mathcal{A}''\) we set \[\kappa(Y) := |\mathcal{A}_{Y}| - 1,\] i.e., \(\kappa(Y)\) is the number of hyperplanes in \(\mathcal{A} \setminus \{H_{0}\}\) lying above \(Y\). A result due to Ziegler tells us that freeness of \(\mathcal{A}\) implies freeness of \((\mathcal{A}'', \kappa)\). The main question that of can ask is the following. Question. Is it the case that \((\mathcal{A}'', \kappa)\) is inductively free whenever \(\mathcal{A}\) is? In order to understand better the above question the authors investigate in that context a specific class of arrangements, namely (irreducible) reflection arrangements. Thanks to work of Terao we know that every reflection arrangement \(\mathcal{A}\) is free, so this implies that \((\mathcal{A}'', \kappa)\) is also free. The main result can be formulated as follows. Theorem A. Let \(\mathcal{A} = \mathcal{A}(W)\) be the reflection arrangement of the irreducible complex reflection group \(W\). Let \(\mathcal{A}''\) be the restriction arrangement to a hyperplane \(H \in \mathcal{A}\). Then \((\mathcal{A}'',\kappa)\) is inductively free if and only if one of the following holds: a) \(\mathcal{A}\) is inductively free, or b) \(\mathcal{A}\) is non-inductively free of rank at most \(4\). Corollary. Let \(\mathcal{A} = \mathcal{A}(W)\) be the reflection arrangement of the complex reflection group \(W\). Then \((\mathcal{A}'', \kappa)\) is inductively free if and only if \(\mathcal{A}''\) is itself inductively free. Another multiplicity function that one can consider in that context is defined as follows. Let \(\mathcal{A}\) be an arrangement. Fix \(H_{0} \in \mathcal{A}\) and \(m_{0} \in \mathbb{Z}_{\geq 1}\), we define the multiplicity \(\delta\) concentrated at \(H_{0}\) by \(\delta(H):= \delta_{H_{0}, m_{0}}(H) = m_{0}\) provided that \(H = H_{0}\) and \(\delta(H) = 1\) otherwise. Theorem B. Let \(\mathcal{A} = \mathcal{A}(W)\) be the reflection arrangement of the complex reflection group \(W\). Then \((\mathcal{A}, \delta)\) is inductively free if and only if \(\mathcal{A}\) is inductively free.