Fundamental groups of projective discriminant complements (Q602057)

Consider the projective space \(\mathbb{P}=\mathbb{P}\mathrm{Sym}^d\mathbb{C}^{n+1}\) of homogeneous polynomials of degree \(d\) in \(n+1\) variables. Inside \(\mathbb{P}\), we have the discriminant hypersurface \(D_{n,d}\) of polynomials defining singular hypersurfaces. The main aim of this paper is to give a presentation of the fundamental group of the complement \(U_{n,d}\) of the discriminant hypersurface \(D_{n,d}\). Along the way the author obtains valuable information on the discriminant polynomial, i.e. a defining equation for the discriminant hypersurface \(D_{n,d}\). Applications are given to fundamental groups of complements of singular plane curves.