Cohomology of the space of polynomial maps on \(\mathbb{A}^1\) with prescribed ramification (Q2007744)

The paper under review starts with the space \({\mathrm{M}}_{\mathrm{n}}\) of all monic polynomials of degree \(n+1\) over \(K\) that vanish at \(0\), where \(K\) is an algebraically closed field. A lot of work has been made on subvarieties of \({\mathrm{M}}_{\mathrm{n}}\), and the author considers here the subvarieties \(Simp_n^m\), consisting of the morphisms with total ramification \(< m\). This subvariety is a Zariski open dense subset of \({\mathrm{M}}_{\mathrm{n}}\). The goal of the article is to compute the cohomology of \(Simp_n^m\), what is achieved in Theorem A. In order to state it, call \(\mathbf{p}(N)\) the number of partitions of a positive integer \(N\), and define \(\mathbf{c} : \mathbb{Z}^+ \rightarrow \mathbb{Z}^+ \) by \(\mathbf{c}(m) = \sum \mathbf{p}(n_1+1) \cdots \mathbf{p}(n_k+1)\), where the sum runs over \(k \geq 1\), \(n_1 + \dots + n_k=m\), \(n_1 \leq \dots \leq n_k\). Then, if \(m \geq 1, n \geq 3m\), Theorem A gives the singular cohomology of \(Simp_n^m\), \(H^i\), and its étale cohomology, \(H^i_{ \acute{e}t}\), in the following terms: (1) \(H^i(Simp_n^m(\mathbb{C});\mathbb{Q})\) is \(\mathbb{Q}\) for \(i=0\), \(\mathbb{Q}^{\oplus \mathbf{c}(m)}\) for \(i=2m-1\), and \(0\) otherwise. Besides, in the case \(i=2m-1\), \(H^{2m-1}(Simp_n^m(\mathbb{C});\mathbb{Q})\) is pure of weight \(-2m\) and Hedge type \((-m,-m)\). (2) If \(\kappa\) is a field of characteristic \(0\) or greater than \(n+1\), \(H^i_{ \acute{e}t}(Simp_{n\; / \overline{\kappa}} ^m(\mathbb{C});\mathbb{Q}_\ell)\) is \(\mathbb{Q}_\ell(0)\) for \(i = 0\), \(\mathbb{Q}_\ell(-m)^{\oplus \mathbf{c}(m)}\) for \(i = 2m-1\), and \(0\) otherwise, with \(\ell\) coprime with the characteristic of \(\kappa\). The proof of Theorem A is rather lengthy, and it runs throughout Sections 2 to 6 of the paper. However, the plan of the proof, and its development, are clearly explained. Its main tools are the topological properties of the poset that encodes the behavior of the ramification, and provides a stratification of \({\mathrm{M}}_{\mathrm{n}}\). As a noteworthy point of Theorem A we should note that the value of \(H^i\) is independent of \(n\).