Discriminantal bundles, arrangement groups, and subdirect products of free groups

, generalizing the configuration space bundles arising in the Lawrence-Krammer-Bigelow representation of the pure braid group. We display such families F for rank two arrangements, reflection arrangements of types

A_{e} l l

,

B_{e} l l

,

D_{e} l l

,

F_{4}

, and for arrangements supporting multinet structures with three classes, with the resulting bundles having nontrivial monodromy around each hyperplane. The construction extends to arbitrary arrangements by pulling back these bundles along products of inclusions arising from subarrangements of these types. We then consider the faithfulness of the resulting representations of the arrangement group

p i_{1} (M)

. We describe the kernel of the product

h o_{X} c o l o n G o p r o d_{S i n X} G_{S}

of homomorphisms of a finitely-generated group

G

onto quotient groups

G_{S}

determined by a family X of subsets of a fixed set of generators of

G

, extending a result of T.~Stanford about Brunnian braids. When the projections

G o G_{S}

split in a compatible way, we show the image of

h o_{X}

is normal with free abelian quotient, and identify the cohomological finiteness type of

G

. These results apply to some well-studied arrangements, implying several qualitative and residual properties of

p i_{1} (M)

, including an alternate proof of a result of Artal, Cogolludo, and Matei on arrangement groups and Bestvina-Brady groups, and a dichotomy for a decomposable arrangement A: either

p i_{1} (M)

has a conjugation-free presentation or it is not residually nilpotent.

Review text

Discriminantal bundles are constructed as follows. Let \(M(\mathcal{A})\) be the complement of an affine hyperplane arrangement \(\mathcal{A}\) in \(\mathbb{C}^{\ell}\) and \(\mathcal{F} = \{f_1, \dots, f_{\mu}\}\) a family of complex valued continuous functions (generating set) on \(M\) such that the function \(f_i - f_j\), \(i \not= j\), is nowhere zero on \(M(\mathcal{A})\). Then the image of the function \(f = (f_1, \dots , f_{\mu}): M(\mathcal{A}) \to \mathbb{C}^{\ell}\) lies inside the complement \(PB_{\mu} = M(\mathcal{A}_{\mu})\) of the braid arrangement. The projection \(\mathbb{C}^{\mu + k} \to \mathbb{C}^{\mu}\) to the first coordinates induces the Fadell-Neuwirth bundle map \(PB_{\mu + k} \to PB_{\mu}\) with fiber the ordered configuration space of \(k\)-points in the \(k\)-punctured plane \(F_{\mu, k}\). The discriminantal bundle \(p: E_k(\mathcal{A}, \mathcal{F}) \to M(\mathcal{A})\) is the pull-back of the previous bundle using \(f\). Its fiber is again \(F_{\mu, k}\). Also, if \({\pi}_1(F_{\mu, k}) = G_{\mu,k}\), then the fiber is an Eilenberg-McLane space of type \(K(G_{\mu,k}, 1)\). The main purpose of the paper is to derive certain algebraic properties of \({\pi}_1(M(\mathcal{A}))\) using this bundle and the algebraic properties of braid groups. Of particular interest is the construction of faithful representations. The fundamental group \({\pi}_1( E_k(\mathcal{A}, \mathcal{F}))\) is isomorphic to a semidirect product \(G_{\mu,k}\rtimes{\pi}_1(M(\mathcal{A})\) and its is linear if \({\pi}_1(M(\mathcal{A})\) is. Let \(\mathcal{S}\) be a subarrangment of \(\mathcal{A}\) and for each \(S \in \mathcal{S}\), let \(M_S\) be the hyperplane complement defined by \(S\) and \(M = M(\mathcal{A})\). Let \[{\phi}_{\mathcal S} = \prod_{S \in \mathcal{S}}i_S: M \to \prod_{S \in \mathcal{S}}M_S\] the map where each coordinate is the inclusion map. Let \({\rho}_{\mathcal{S}}\) be the map induced by \({\phi}_{\mathcal S}\) on the fundamental groups. In this paper, it is shown, under a local condition, that the kernel of \({\rho}_{\mathcal{S}}\) is generated by images of commutators of the free group on the canonical generators to the \(G = {\pi}_1(M)\). Furthermore conditions are given that guarantee that the map is injective. In the particular case that \(\mathcal{S}\) is of rank two flat or a parallel class in \(\mathcal{A}\), the groups \(G_{\mathcal{S}}\) are isomorphic to \(\mathbb{Z}\times F_{r - 1}\) or to \(F_r\), \(r = |\mathcal{S}|\). So in the case that \(\mathcal{X} \subset 2^{\mathcal{A}}\) is a set of rank two flats and parallel classes, the target of the homomorphism \(\rho_{\mathcal{X}}\) is a right-angled Artin group. Now they give the construction of a bipartite graph \({\Lambda}_{\mathcal{X}}\) with vertices \(\mathcal{X}\cup Y\) (\(Y\) correspond to the canonical generators of \(G\)) and edges \((S_i, y_i)\) with \(y_i \in S_i\). The factors \(\mathbb{Z}\times F_{r - 1}\) are replaced by \(F_{r-1}\), the group \(G\) by the group \(\bar{G} = G/{\langle}z{\rangle}\) where \(z\) is the central element that is the product of the canonical generators and the homomorphism \({\rho}_{\mathcal{X}}\) by the induced homomorphism \(\bar{{\rho}}_{\mathcal{X}}\). It is shown that the image \(\bar{N}_{\mathcal{X}}\) of \(\bar{{\rho}}_{\mathcal{X}}\) is a normal subgroup and the cokernel is abelian isomorphic to \(H^1({\Lambda}_{\mathcal{X}}, \mathbb{Z})\). The authors prove the main algebraic properties of \(\bar{N}_{\mathcal{X}}\). In particular, it is proved that, under the hypotheses that \({\Lambda}_{\mathcal{X}}\) is connected, \(\bar{N}_{\mathcal{X}}\) is of type \(F_{m-1}\) but not of type \(F_m\), where \(m = |\mathcal{X}|\). The authors give examples of their constructions. In particular, for the arrangement given in [\textit{E. A. Bartolo} et al., Groups Geom. Dyn. 9, No. 1, 103--131 (2015; Zbl 1349.14074)] the homomorphism \(\bar{{\rho}}_{\mathcal{X}}\) is a monomorphism and realises \(\bar{G}\) as a Bestvina-Brady group.

Recommendations

Cites work

Cited in

(3)

This page was built for publication: Discriminantal bundles, arrangement groups, and subdirect products of free groups

Report a bug (only for logged in users!)Click here to report a bug for this page (MaRDI item Q2210172)