Singularities of admissible normal functions (with an appendix by Najmuddin Fakhruddin) (Q834802)

The authors continue in this paper the work of M. Green and P. Griffiths on algebraic cycles and singularities of normal functions. By using Morihiko Saito's mixed Hodge modules, they prove that the existence of singularities of the type considered by Green and Griffiths is equivalent to the Hodge conjecture. Along the way, the authors obtain a relative version of the weak Lefschetz theorem for perverse sheaves. Another version of this latter result is described in the appendix.