On the structure of fundamental groups of conic-line arrangements having a cycle in their graph (Q741414)

Let \(A\) be an arrangement of conics and lines in the complex plane. In a previous work [``On the structure of conjugation-free fundamental groups of conic-line arrangements'', \url{arXiv:1111.5291}], the authors showed that if \(A\) is a real conic-line arrangement such that a certain graph may be drawn on the arrangement that has no cycles, then the fundamental group of the complement of the arrangement has a conjugation-free geometric presentation. In the present paper, the authors continue the investigation of conic-line arrangements by studying a certain family of such arrangements. They construct a regular \(n\)-gon in the real plane where \(n\) is at least 3, and draw a circle through the \(n\) vertices of the \(n\)-gon and extend the segments of the \(n\)-gon to form \(n\) straight lines in the plane. The resulting arrangement of lines and circle may be considered a conic-line arrangement in the complex plane and is denoted by \(A_n\). The complement of \(A_n\) in the plane will be denoted by \(M_n\). In this case, a graph may be constructed on the arrangement that consists of a cycle of length \(n.\) The authors show two main results by working explicitly with presentations of the fundamental groups and the lower central series. First they show that for \( n = 2k+1 \geq 3\), that \(M_n\) is abelian, \(A_n\) is not conjugation-free, and \(A_n\) is almost-conjugation-free. For \(n=2k >4\), the authors show that \(M_n\) is not isomorphic to a direct sum of a free abelian group and free groups. Again, the results are obtained using an explicit presentation of the fundamental group along with the lower central series. They explain why \(A_{2k}\) is almost-conjugation free, but the question remains whether or not \(A_{2k}\) is conjugation-free.