On fundamental groups of plane curve complements (Q895819)

The authors deal with topics related to the study of the fundamental group of the complement \(\mathbb{P}^2\setminus {C}\) of an algebraic reduced plane curve \(C\). At first, they focus on the Milnor fiber \(F\) associated to the curve \(C\) and discuss the non-triviality of Alexander polynomials and the notion of (nearly) freeness for irreducible plane curves, giving an example of a rational cuspidal curve with corresponding cohomology group \(H^1(F)\neq 0\). Then, using a modern approach (which involves monodromy and Wang sequences), the authors reprove a classical result due to Zariski, which says that a cyclic covering of \(\mathbb{P}^2\) of degree \(p^a\), with \(p\) prime and ramified along an irreducible curve \(C\), has zero geometric genus. Finally, they consider curves such that the fundamental group of the complement is abelian and study the topology of the corresponding Milnor fiber.