Hypersurface Singularities with 2-Dimensional Critical Locus (Q4948565)

The Milnor fiber of an analytic germ \(f\colon({\mathbb C}^m,0)\to({\mathbb C},0)\) (\(m\geq 3\)), with critical locus a 2-dimensional complete intersection \(\Sigma\) with isolated singularity, and with finite extended codimension, is shown to be homotopically equivalent to a bouquet of spheres. (The corresponding results for 0- and 1-dimensional singular loci appears in \textit{J. W. Milnor} [`Singular points of complex hypersurfaces' (1968; Zbl 0184.48405)] and \textit{D. Siersma} [Topology Appl. 27, No. 1, 51-73 (1987; Zbl 0635.32006)], respectively.) In the Main Theorem, the exact structure of the bouquet is determined: the author associates to the function \(f\) another function \(D\) on a neighborhood of \(0\in{\mathbb C}^m\). For \(D(0)\neq 0\), the structure of the bouquet depends on the Milnor number of \(\Sigma\) and the number of \(A_1\)-points which occur in a `` `good' deformation of \(f\)''. For \(D(0)=0\), in addition to the numbers already mentioned, the bouquet depends on the Milnor number of \(D^{-1}(0)\cap\Sigma\) and on whether or not a certain monodromy map is trivial. It is also proved that the case \(D(0)\neq 0\) of the Main Theorem generalizes to germs with higher-dimensional critical locus.