Periods for irregular singular connections on surfaces (Q877164)

\textit{P. Deligne} [``Equations différentielles á points singuliers réguliers'', Lect. Notes Math. 163 (1970; Zbl 0244.14004)] has introduced the notion of regular singularities at infinity for a connection \((E,\nabla)\) defined on a quasi-projective smooth complex variety \(U\). He has shown that the comparison morphism is an isomorphism in case of a regular singular connection. One can restate Deligne's result by saying that the period pairing \[ H^p_{\text{dR}}(U; E,\nabla)\otimes H_p(U^{\text{an}},{\mathcal E}^v)\to \mathbb{C} \] is perfect, where \({\mathcal E}^v\) is the local system associated to the dual connection \((E^v,\nabla^v)\). \textit{S. Bloch} and \textit{H. Esnault} [Math. Ann. 321, No. 1, 15--87 (2001; Zbl 1040.14006)] have generalized this perfect pairing to the case of irregular singular connections on curves, by modifying the involved homology groups. In this paper the author proves similar results for irregular singular connections on surfaces by introducing the rapid decay homology and assuming a conjecture of C. Sabbah on good formal structure of connections (which is known to hold for \(\text{rank\,}E\leq 5\)).