Milnor fibrations of lattice-isotopic arrangements (Q4356709)

An arrangement of hyperplanes \({\mathcal A}\) is a finite collection of codimension one linear subspaces of \({\mathbb{C}}^\ell\). The union \(D\) of the hyperplanes of \({\mathcal A}\) is a hypersurface defined by a homogeneous polynomial \(Q\) which is a product of linear forms. Thus \(D\) has a highly non-isolated singularity at the origin. The Milnor fiber \(F=Q^{-1}(1)\) is a smooth manifold which captures much of the structure of the singular variety \(D\) and its complement \(M={\mathbb{C}}^\ell - D\). The intersection lattice \(L({\mathcal A})\) of \({\mathcal A}\) is the partially ordered set consisting of subspaces of \({\mathbb{C}}^\ell\) which are intersections of hyperplanes of \({\mathcal A}\), ordered by reverse inclusion. It is known that \(L({\mathcal A})\) determines the cohomology algebra of \(M\), but does not determine the homotopy type of \(M\). It is not known if \(L({\mathcal A})\) determines the diffeomorphism type (or even the first betti number) of the Milnor fiber \(F\). In the paper under review, the author shows that the diffeomorphism type of \(F\), or more generally, the diffeomorphism type of the Milnor fibration \(Q| _M: M \to {\mathbb{C}}^*\), is constant within smooth families with the same lattice. More specifically, a lattice isotopy is defined to be a one-parameter family of arrangements (given by a one-parameter family of defining linear forms) in which the intersection lattice remains constant throughout the deformation. Lattice isotopic arrangements are shown to have smoothly equivalent Milnor fibrations. This result complements Randell's ``lattice-isotopy theorem'' [\textit{R. Randell}, Proc. Am. Math. Soc. 107, No. 2, 555-559 (1989; Zbl 0681.57016)], which states that the complements of lattice-isotopic arrangements are diffeomorphic. The method of proof is the same for both results, utilizing the Thom Isotopy Lemma. The verification that the natural stratifications satisfy the Whitney condition is again the crux of the argument, but is more delicate in the present setting because of the presence of the map \(Q\).