Locally heavy hyperplanes in multiarrangements (Q1979318)

The authors study locally heavy hyperplane multiarrangements. Let \(V\) be a vector space of dimension \(\ell\) over a field \(\mathbb{K}\). A central arrangement of hyperplanes \(\mathcal{A}\) in \(V\) is a finite collection of hyperplanes, all passing through the origin. By a multiarrangement one understands an arrangement of hyperplanes \(\mathcal{A}\) with a multiplicity function \(m : \mathcal{A} \rightarrow \mathbb{Z}_{>0}\). Define \(|m|:= \sum_{H \in \mathcal{A}}m(H)\). A multiarrangement \((\mathcal{A},m)\) with \(m(H)=1\) for all \(H \in \mathcal{A}\) is called a simple hyperplane arrangement. For each hyperplane \(H\) we can choose a linear defining equation \(\alpha_{H} \in S :=\mathbb{K}[x_{1}, ...,x_{\ell}]\). Then \(\mathcal{Q}(\mathcal{A},m):=\prod_{H \in \mathcal{A}}\alpha_{H}^{m(H)}\) is the defining equation of a multiarrangement \((\mathcal{A},m)\). Denote by \(L(\mathcal{A})\) the intersection lattice and by \(L_{r}(\mathcal{A})\) the set of all flats \(X \in L(\mathcal{A})\) with codimension \(r\). For \(X \subset V\) let \((\mathcal{A}_{X},m_{X})\) be the localization of \((\mathcal{A},m)\) at \(X\) which is defined as \(\mathcal{A}_{X} = \{H \in \mathcal{A} \, : \, X \subseteq H\}\) and \(m_{X}:=m|_{\mathcal{A}_{X}}\). The \(S\)-module \(D(\mathcal{A},m)\) is the module of logarithmic derivations of \((\mathcal{A},m)\) defined by \[D(\mathcal{A},m):= \bigg\{ \theta\in\mathrm{Der}(S) \, : \, \theta(\alpha_{H}) \in \alpha_{H}^{m(H)}\cdot S \, \text{ for all } \, H \in \mathcal{A} \bigg\},\] where \(\mathrm{Der}(S)\) is the module of all derivations of \(S\). If \(D(\mathcal{A}, m)\) is a free \(S\)-module, we call \((\mathcal{A},m)\) a free multiarrangement. In the case of a free multiarrangement \((\mathcal{A},m)\) one can choose a homogeneous basis \(\theta_{1}, ..., \theta_{\ell}\) of \(D(\mathcal{A},m)\). In this case we define \(\mathrm{exp}(\mathcal{A},m) = \{\mathrm{pdeg} \,\theta_{1}, ...,\mathrm{pdeg} \, \theta_{\ell}\}\) to be the exponents of \((\mathcal{A},m)\), where a derivation \(\theta \in \mathrm{Der}(S)\) is homogeneous with \(\mathrm{pdeg} \, \theta = d\) if \(\theta(\alpha)\) is a homogeneous polynomial of degree \(d\) for any \( \alpha \in V^{*}\). Now we define the main objects of the study. For a multiarrangement \((\mathcal{A},m)\) in \(V\) we say that a hyperplane \(H_{0} \in \mathcal{A}\) is heavy if \[m(H_{0}) \geq \sum_{L \in \mathcal{A}, L \neq H_{0}}m(L).\] A hyperplane \(H_{0} \in \mathcal{A}\) is called locally heavy if \[m(H_{0}) \geq \sum_{L \in \mathcal{A}_{X}, L \neq H_{0}}m(L)\] for all localizations \((\mathcal{A}_{X}, m_{X})\) with \(X \in \mathcal{A}^{H_{0}}\) and \(|\mathcal{A}_{X}| \geq 3\). Let \((\mathcal{A},m)\) be a multiarrangement of hyperplanes and \(H_{0} \in \mathcal{A}\) a fixed hyperplane. We define the Euler-Ziegler restriction \((\mathcal{A}^{H_{0}}, m^{H_{0}})\) by setting \[m^{H_{0}}(X) = |m_{X}| - m(H_{0})\] for any \(X \in \mathcal{A}^{H_{0}}\). \\ Now, for a simple arrangement \(\mathcal{A}\), the second Betti number \(b_{2}(\mathcal{A})\) is defined as \[b_{2}(\mathcal{A}) := \sum_{X \in L_{2}(\mathcal{A})} |\mathcal{A}_{X}|-1.\] For a multiarrangement \((\mathcal{A},m)\), the second Betti number of \(b_{2}(\mathcal{A},m)\) is defined as \[b_{2}(\mathcal{A},m) :=\sum_{X \in L_{2}(\mathcal{A})}d_{X}^{(1)}d_{X}^{(2)},\] where \(d_{X}^{(1)}, d_{X}^{(2)}\) are the non-zero exponents of the multiarrangement \((\mathcal{A}_{X}, m_{X})\) which is a multiarrangement of rank \(2\), and thus it is free. Now we are ready to formulate the first main result of the paper. Theorem A. Let \((\mathcal{A},m)\) be a multiarrangement with locally heavy hyperplane \(H_{0} \in \mathcal{A}\) and \(m_{0} := m(H_{0})\). Then \[b_{2}(\mathcal{A},m) -m_{0}(|m| - m_{0}) \geq b_{2}(\mathcal{A}^{H_{0}}, m^{H_{0}}).\] Moreover, \((\mathcal{A},m)\) is free if and only if the Euler-Ziegler restriction \((\mathcal{A}^{H_{0}}, m^{H_{0}}) \) of \((\mathcal{A},m)\) onto \(H_{0}\) is free, and the above inequality holds with equality. Let \(\mathcal{A}\) be an arrangement in \(V=\mathbb{K}^{\ell}\). A flag \(\{X_{i}\}_{i=1}^{\ell}\) of \(\mathcal{A}\) with \(X_{i} \in L_{i}(\mathcal{A})\), i.e., \(\mathrm{codim} \, X_{i} = i\), is called a locally heavy flag if \(X_{i+1} \in \mathcal{A}^{X_{i}}\) is locally heavy in \((\mathcal{A}^{X_{i}},m^{X_{i}})\) for \(i \in \{1, ..., \ell -1\}\). Let \(\mathrm{LHF}_{\ell}\) be the set of hyperplane arrangements in \(V\) such that every \(\mathcal{A} \in\mathrm{LHF}_{\ell}\) admits a locally heavy flag. The following result gives a positive answer to Terao's conjecture for the class of arrangements in \(\mathrm{LHF}_{\ell}\). Theorem B. Let \(\mathcal{A}\) be an arrangement in \(V = \mathbb{K}^{\ell}\) which admits a locally heavy flag \(\{X_{i}\}_{i=1}^{\ell}\). Then \(\mathcal{A}\) is free with the exponents \(\mathrm{exp}(\mathcal{A}) = (1, m^{X_{1}}(X_{2}), ..., m^{X_{\ell}-1}(X_{\ell}))\) if and only if \[b_{2}(\mathcal{A}) = \sum_{0 \leq i < j \leq \ell -1} m^{X_{i}}(X_{i+1})m^{X_{j}}(X_{j+1}),\] where we set \(m^{X_{0}}(X_{1}) := 1\). In this case, this flag is both a supersolvable filtration and a divisorial flag. In particular, the freeness of any \(\mathcal{A} \in \mathrm{LHF}_{\ell}\) depends only on its intersection poset \(L(\mathcal{A})\).