Intersection homology and Alexander modules of hypersurface complements

  • Laurentiu Maxim

    University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, United States

Abstract

Let be a degree , reduced hypersurface in , , and fix a generic hyperplane, . Denote by the (affine) hypersurface complement, , and let be the infinite cyclic covering of corresponding to the kernel of the total linking number homomorphism. Using intersection homology theory, we give a new construction of the Alexander modules of the hypersurface complement and show that, if , these are torsion over the ring of rational Laurent polynomials. We also obtain obstructions on the associated global polynomials: their zeros are roots of unity of order and are entirely determined by the local topological information encoded by the link pairs of singular strata of a stratification of the pair . As an application, we give obstructions on the eigenvalues of monodromy operators associated to

Cite this article

Laurentiu Maxim, Intersection homology and Alexander modules of hypersurface complements. Comment. Math. Helv. 81 (2006), no. 1, pp. 123–155

DOI 10.4171/CMH/46