Torsion in the homology of Milnor fibers of hyperplane arrangements

Abstract

As is well-known, the homology groups of the complement of a complex hyperplane arrangement are torsion-free. Nevertheless, as we showed in a recent paper [arXiv:1209.3414] the homology groups of the Milnor fiber of such an arrangement can have non-trivial integer torsion. We give here a brief account of the techniques that go into proving this result, outline some of its applications, and indicate some further questions that it brings to light.

To appear in Combinatorial Methods in Topology and Algebra, Springer INdAM Series, vol. 12, 2015. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1209.3414