The cohomology algebra of the complement of a finite family of affine subspaces in an affine space. (L'algèbre de cohomologie du complément, dans un espace affine, d'une famille finie de sous-espaces affines). (Q5954554)

Let \(X\) be the complement of a locally finite collection \(E\) of proper affine subspaces of a real affine space \(V\). \textit{M. Goresky} and \textit{R. MacPherson} [``Stratified Morse theory'' (1988; Zbl 0639.14012)] applied Morse theory to describe a decomposition of the homology of \(X\) into factors indexed by the so-called flats of \(E\). Here, the flats of \(E\) are \(V\) and the nonempty intersections of elements of \(E\). In the paper under review, the authors apply the methods of sheaf cohomology to recover these results (for the cohomology of \(X\)). They obtain for finite \(E\) a decomposition \(H^*(X)=\bigoplus h^*(A)\) of the cohomology of \(X\), indexed by the flats. Moreover, the summands \(h^*(A)\) are explicitely calculated as a tensor product of \(H^*_A(V,\mathbb{Z})\) with a group depending on the combinatorics of \(E\). Furthermore, the cup product of \(H^{*}(X)\) is calculated in terms of the decomposition. Finally, the authors remark that due to the sheaf-theoretic tools, the arguments translate to the case of \(\ell\)-adic cohomology of the complement of a finite family of affine subspaces in an affine space over an algebraically closed field.