Nearby cycles and Alexander modules of hypersurface complements (Q2634784)

Consider a hypersurface complement \(U\) in \(\mathbb C^{n+1}\) and its natural infinite cyclic cover \(U^c\). The \(i\)-th Alexander module is defined to be the \(i\)-th homology of \(U^c\) as a \(Z[t,t^{-1}]\)-module (coming from the deck transformations). This module is a torsion module (if the hypersurface is transversal at infinity), hence one encodes the Alexander invariants by a polynomial in \(t\), the Alexander polynomial. The main result of the paper is a realization of the Alexander module by Sabbah's specialization complex. The latter is closely related with the nearby cycles and hence to the local invariants of the singularities of the hypersurface. The first application is a relation between the generic fiber and Sabbah's specialization complex. A corollary is an upper bound for \(H_n(U^c)\). Another nice application is a divisibility result of the following nature: the prime factors of the global Alexander invariant (in a certain range) are among the prime factors of the local Alexander polynomials (in a certain range) coming from a stratification of the hypersurface. The author also proves Maxim's conjecture about the prime factors of the global Alexander invariant in the case when the nearby cycle splits in the appropriate category. Probably the most important application of the main theorem is the definition of a mixed Hodge structure (inherited from the nearby cycles) on the torsion Alexander module. This structure recovers results of Dimca-Libgober in conceptual way.