Curve arrangements, pencils, and Jacobian syzygies (Q2363556)

The paper considers arrangements of curves in the complex plane, and gives sufficient conditions for the arrangement to be free (resp. nearly free). The criteria apply under some technical assumption on the arrangement, namely there should exist a subarrangement containing at least three members in a pencil. These results allow one to prove some special cases of Terao's conjecture (freeness of the arrangement depends only on the intersection lattice), giving new proofs of some results by \textit{D. Faenzi} and \textit{J. Vallès} [J. Lond. Math. Soc., II. Ser. 90, No. 3, 675--694 (2014; Zbl 1308.52021)]. The author also discusses sufficient conditions for the arrangement complement to be aspherical.