We show that the monodromy operator at infinity plus the decomposition of the homology given by the vanishing cycles completely determine the homology monodromy representation of any complex polynomial.
The order of the Milnor fiber monodromy operator of a central hyperplane arrangement is shown to be combinatorially determined. In particular, a necessary and sufficient condition for the triviality of this monodromy operator is given. It is known that the complement of a complex hyperplane arrangement is cohomologically Tate and, if the arrangement is defined over $\Q$, has polynomial count. We show that these properties hold for the corresponding Milnor fibers if the monodromy is trivial. We construct a hyperplane arrangement defined over $\Q$, whose Milnor fiber has a nontrivial monodromy o…
We construct an effective algorithmic method to compute the homological monodromy of a complex polynomial which is tame. As an application we show the existence of conjugated polynomials in a number field which are not topologically equivalent
A generalization of Arnold's strange duality to invertible polynomials in three variables by the first author and A.Takahashi includes the following relation. For some invertible polynomials $f$ the Saito dual of the reduced monodromy zeta function of $f$ coincides with a formal "root" of the reduced monodromy zeta function of its Berglund-Hübsch transpose $f^T$. Here we give a geometric interpretation of "roots" of the monodromy zeta function and generalize the above relation to all non-degenerate invertible polynomials in three variables and to some polynomials in an arbitrary number of vari…
We study the bifurcation values of real polynomial maps $f: \bR^{2n} \to \bR^2$ which reflect the lack of asymptotic regularity at infinity. We formulate real counterparts of some structure results which have been previously proved in case of complex polynomials by Kushnirenko, Némethi and Zaharia and other authors, emphasizing the typical real phenomena that occur.
In earlier work, the authors described a relation between the Poincaré series and the classical monodromy zeta function corresponding to a quasihomogeneous polynomial. Here we formulate an equivariant version of this relation in terms of the Burnside rings of finite abelian groups and their analogues.
The middle homology of the Milnor fiber of a quasihomogeneous polynomial with an isolated singularity is a ${\mathbb Z}$-lattice and comes equipped with an automorphism of finite order, the integral monodromy. Orlik (1972) made a precise conjecture, which would determine this monodromy in terms of the weights of the polynomial. Here we prove this conjecture for the cycle type singularities. A paper of Cooper (1982) with the same aim contained two mistakes. Still it is very useful. We build on it and correct the mistakes. We give additional algebraic and combinatorial results.
By introducing motivic Milnor fibers at infinity of polynomial maps, we propose some methods for the study of nilpotent parts of monodromies at infinity. The numbers of Jordan blocks in the monodromy at infinity will be described by the Newton polyhedron at infinity of the polynomial.
We describe an algorithm computing the monodromy and the pole order filtration on the Milnor fiber cohomology of any reduced projective plane curve $C$. The relation to the zero set of Bernstein-Sato polynomial of the defining homogeneous polynomial for $C$ is also discussed. When $C$ has some non weighted homogeneous singularities, then we have to assume that a conjecture holds in order to get some of our results. In all the examples computed so far this conjecture holds.
For a generic (polynomial) one-parameter deformation of a complete intersection, there is defined its monodromy zeta-function. We provide explicit formulae for this zeta-function in terms of the corresponding Newton polyhedra in the case the deformation is non-degenerate with respect to its Newton polyhedra. Using this result we obtain the formula for the monodromy zeta-function at the origin of a polynomial on a complete intersection, which is an analog of the Libgober--Sperber theorem.
We study the Dynkin diagram associated to the monodromy of direct sums of polynomials. The monodromy problem asks under which conditions on a polynomial, the monodromy of a vanishing cycle generates the whole homology of a regular fiber. We consider the case $y^4+g(x)$, which is a generalization of the results of Christopher and Marde$\check{s}$ić about the monodromy problem for hyperelliptic curves. Moreover, We solve the monodromy problem for direct sums of fourth degree polynomials.
In the last years a lot of work has been concentrated on the study of the behaviour at infinity of polynomial maps. This behaviour can be very complicated, therefore the main idea was to find special classes of polynomial maps which have, in some sense, nice properties at infinity. In this paper, we completely determine the complex algebraic monodromy at infinity for a special class of polynomial maps (which is complicated enough to show the nature of the general problem).
By using sheaf-theoretical methods such as constructible sheaves, we generalize the formula of Libgober-Sperber concerning the zeta functions of monodromy at infinity of polynomial maps into various directions. In particular, some formulas for the zeta functions of global monodromy along the fibers of bifurcation points of polynomial maps will be obtained.
Let $f$ and $g$ be reduced homogeneous polynomials in separate sets of variables. We establish a simple formula that relates the eigenspace decomposition of the monodromy operator on the Milnor fiber cohomology of $fg$ to that of $f$ and $g$ separately. We use a relation between local systems and Milnor fiber cohomology that has been established by D. Cohen and A. Suciu.
We study methods for finding the solution set of a generic system in a family of polynomial systems with parametric coefficients. We present a framework for describing monodromy based solvers in terms of decorated graphs. Under the theoretical assumption that monodromy actions are generated uniformly, we show that the expected number of homotopy paths tracked by an algorithm following this framework is linear in the number of solutions. We demonstrate that our software implementation is competitive with the existing state-of-the-art methods implemented in other software packages.
We study the topology of polynomial functions by deforming them generically. We explain how the non-conservation of the total ``quantity'' of singularity in the neighbourhood of infinity is related to the variation of topology in certain families of boundary singularities along the hyperplane at infinity.
A log generic hypersurface in $\mathbb{P}^n$ with respect to a birational modification of $\mathbb{P}^n$ is by definition the image of a generic element of a high power of an ample linear series on the modification. A log very-generic hypersurface is defined similarly but restricting to line bundles satisfying a non-resonance condition. Fixing a log resolution of a product $f=f_1\ldots f_p$ of polynomials, we show that the monodromy conjecture, relating the motivic zeta function with the complex monodromy, holds for the tuple $(f_1,\ldots,f_p,g)$ and for the product $fg$, if $g$ is log generic…
We investigate the interplay between the monodromy and the Deligne mixed Hodge structure on the Milnor fiber of a homogeneous polynomial. In the case of hyperplane arrangement Milnor fibers, we obtain a new result on the possible weights. For line arrangements, we prove in a new way the fact due to Budur and Saito that the spectrum is determined by the weak combinatorial data, and show that such a result fails for the Hodge-Deligne polynomials.
The Wronskian associates to d linearly independent polynomials of degree at most n, a non-zero polynomial of degree at most d(n-d). This can be viewed as giving a flat, finite morphism from the Grassmannian Gr(d,n) to projective space of the same dimension. In this paper, we study the monodromy groupoid of this map. When the roots of the Wronskian are real, we show that the monodromy is combinatorially encoded by Schutzenberger's jeu de taquin; hence we obtain new geometric interpretations and proofs of a number of results from jeu de taquin theory, including the Littlewood-Richardson rule.
A classic result of Ritt describes polynomials invertible in radicals: they are compositions of power polynomials, Chebyshev polynomials and polynomials of degree at most 4. In this paper we prove that a polynomial invertible in radicals and solutions of equations of degree at most k is a composition of power polynomials, Chebyshev polynomials, polynomials of degree at most k and, if k < 15, certain polynomials with exceptional monodromy groups. A description of these exceptional polynomials is given. The proofs rely on classification of monodromy groups of primitive polynomials obtained by Mü…
A relation is proved between the Poincaré series of the coordinate algebra of a two-dimensional quasihomogeneous isolated hypersurface singularity and the characteristic polynomial of its monodromy operator. For a Kleinian singularity not of type $A_{2n}$, this amounts to the statement that the Poincaré series is the quotient of the characteristic polynomial of the Coxeter element by the characteristic polynomial of the affine Coxeter element of the corresponding root system. We show that this result also follows from the McKay correspondence.
Consider the gradient map associated to any non-constant homogeneous polynomial $f\in \C[x_0,...,x_n]$ of degree $d$, defined by \[ϕ_f=grad(f): D(f)\to \CP^n, (x_0:...:x_n)\to (f_0(x):...:f_n(x))\] where $D(f)=\{x\in \CP^n; f(x)\neq 0\}$ is the principal open set associated to $f$ and $f_i=\frac{\partial f}{\partial x_i}$. This map corresponds to polar Cremona transformations. In Proposition \ref{p1} we give a new lower bound for the degree $d(f)$ of $ϕ_f$ under the assumption that the projective hypersurface $V:f=0 $ has only isolated singularities. When $d(f)=1$, Theorem \ref{t4} yields very…
We formulate certain sufficient conditions for the symplectic monodromy of an isolated quasihomogeneous singularity to be of infinite order in the relative symplectic mapping class group of the Milnor fibre and give a proof using Maslov classes, stability theory for Lagrangian folds resp. stable Morse theory for generating families as well as algebraic results about relative cohomology of smoothings of isolated singularities. Our conditions being slightly more restrictive than Seidel's, in contrary to Seidel's proof, we do not use Floer theory to derive this result. An alternative approach usi…
In this note we consider the Milnor fiber $F$ associated to a reduced projective plane curve $C$. A computational approach for the determination of the characteristic polynomial of the monodromy action on the first cohomology group of $F$, also known as the Alexander polynomial of the curve $C$, is presented. This leads to an effective algorithm to detect all the monodromy eigenvalues and, in many cases, explicit bases for the monodromy eigenspaces in terms of polynomial differential forms.
We compute the Galois groups for a certain class of polynomials over the the field of rational numbers that was introduced by S. Mori and study the monodromy of corresponding hyperelliptic jacobians.
We consider an arbitrary polynomial map $f:{\mathbb C}^{n+1}\to {\mathbb C} $ and we study the Alexander invariants of ${\mathbb C}^{n+1}\setminus X$ for any fiber $X$ of $f$. The article has two major messages. First, the most important qualitative properties of the Alexander modules are completely independent of the behaviour of $f$ at infinity, or about the special fibers. Second, all the Alexander invariants of all the fibers of the polynomial $f$ are closely related to the monodromy representation of $f$. In fact, all the torsion parts of the Alexander modules (associated with all the pos…
We encode the variation structure of a quasihomogeneous polynomial with an isolated singularity as introduced by Nemethi in a set of spectral flows of the signature operator on the Milnor bundle by varying global elliptic boundary conditions in a specific way using the quasihomogeneous circle action on the Brieskorn lattice. For this, we use adiabatic techniques and well-known results on spectral flow and Maslov index. Furthermore we interpret the inequality of a certain member of this family of spectral flows with a spectral flow induced by a Reeb flow on the boundary of the Milnor fibre as g…
We give three new proofs of a theorem of C. Sabbah asserting that the weight filtration of the limit mixed Hodge structure at infinity of cohomologically tame polynomials coincides with the monodromy filtration up to a certain shift depending on the unipotent or non-unipotent monodromy part.
We give a concrete formula for the total Milnor number of the weighted-Le-Yomdin-at-infinity polynomial in most of the interesting cases. As an application, we give a description of the monodromy fibration at infinity for such kind of polynomial.
Mirror symmetry for a toric variety involves Laurent polynomials whose symplectic topology is related to the algebraic geometry of the toric variety. We show that there is a monodromy action on the monomially admissible Fukaya-Seidel categories of these Laurent polynomials as the arguments of their coefficients vary that corresponds under homological mirror symmetry to tensoring by a line bundle naturally associated to the monomials whose coefficients are rotated. In the process, we introduce the monomially admissible Fukaya-Seidel category as a new interpretation of the Fukaya-Seidel category…
We obtain an explicit formula for the characteristic polynomial of the local monodromy of $A$-hypergeometric functions with respect to small loops around a coordinate hyperplane $x_i =0$. This formula is similar to the one obtained by Ando, Esterov and Takeuchi for the local monodromy at infinity. Our proof is combinatorial and can be adapted to provide an alternative proof for the latter formula as well. On the other hand, we also prove that the solution space at a nonsingular point of certain irregular and irreducible $A$--hypergeometric $D$--modules has a nontrivial global monodromy invaria…
Let K be a field of characteristic p>0, and let q be a power of p. We determine all polynomials f in K[t]\K[t^p] of degree q(q-1)/2 such that the Galois group of f(t)-u over K(u) has a transitive normal subgroup isomorphic to PSL_2(q), subject to a certain ramification hypothesis. As a consequence, we describe all polynomials f in K[t], of degree not a power of p, such that f is functionally indecomposable over K but f decomposes over an extension of K. Moreover, except for one ramification setup (which is treated in the companion paper arxiv:0707.1837), we describe all indecomposable polynomi…
Using recent results by A. Macinic, S. Papadima and R. Popescu, and a refinement of an older construction of ours, we determine the monodromy action on $H^1(F(G),C)$, where $F(G)$ denotes the Milnor fiber of a hyperplane arrangement associated to an irreducible complex reflection group $G$.
The main objects of study in this paper are the poles of several local zeta functions: the Igusa, topological and motivic zeta function associated to a polynomial or (germ of) holomorphic function in n variables. We are interested in poles of maximal possible order n. In all known cases (curves, non-degenerate polynomials) there is at most one pole of maximal order n which is then given by the log canonical threshold of the function at the corresponding singular point. For an isolated singular point we prove that if the log canonical threshold yields a pole of order n of the corresponding (loc…
We give a topological model for a polynomial map from $\C^n$ to $\C$ in the neighborhood of a fiber with isolated singularities. This is motivated out of the ``unfolding of links'' described earlier by the first author and Lee Rudolph. The topological model gives a useful encoding of the local and global monodromy for the map. The new ingredients --- the topology of the singularities at infinity of an irregular fiber, as encoded by the Milnor fibers at infinity and the monodromy maps on these Milnor fibers --- are recoverable for n=2 in full from the link at infinity of the irregular fiber. Th…
Let $\mathcal{C}_d\subset \mathbb{C}^{d+1}$ be the space of non-singular, univariate polynomials of degree $d$. The Viète map $\mathscr{V} : \mathcal{C}_d \rightarrow Sym_d(\mathbb{C})$ sends a polynomial to its unordered set of roots. It is a classical fact that the induced map $\mathscr{V}_*$ at the level of fundamental groups realises an isomorphism between $π_1(\mathcal{C}_d)$ and the Artin braid group $B_d$. For fewnomials, or equivalently for the intersection $\mathcal{C}$ of $\mathcal{C}_d$ with a collection of coordinate hyperplanes in $\mathbb{C}^{d+1}$, the image of the map $\mathscr…
We give a survey on some aspects of the topological investigation of isolated singularities of complex hypersurfaces by means of Picard-Lefschetz theory. We focus on the concept of distinguished bases of vanishing cycles and the concept of monodromy.
Let $R$ be a complete discrete valuation ring of mixed characteristic $(0,p)$ with field of fractions $K$ containing the $p$-th roots of unity. This paper is concerned with semi-stable models of $p$-cyclic covers of the projective line $C \la \PK$. We start by providing a new construction of a semi-stable model of $C$ in the case of an equidistant branch locus. If the cover is given by the Kummer equation $Z^p=f(X_0)$ we define what we called the monodromy polynomial ${\mathcal L}(Y)$ of $f(X_0)$; a polynomial with coefficients in $K$. Its zeros are key to obtaining a semi-stable model of $C$.…
For a complex polynomial or analytic function f, one has been studying intensively its so-called local zeta functions or complex powers; these are integrals of |f|^{2s}w considered as functions in s, where the w are differential forms with compact support. There is a strong correspondence between their poles and the eigenvalues of the local monodromy of f. In particular Barlet showed that each monodromy eigenvalue of f is of the form exp(a2iπ), where a is such a pole. We prove an analogous result for similar p-adic complex powers, called Igusa (local) zeta functions, but mainly for the related…
We give an equivariant version of the Saito duality which can be regarded as a Fourier transformation on Burnside rings. We show that (appropriately defined) reduced equivariant monodromy zeta functions of Berglund-Hübsch dual invertible polynomials are Saito dual to each other with respect to their groups of diagonal symmetries. Moreover we show that the relation between "geometric roots" of the monodromy zeta functions for some pairs of Berglund-Hübsch dual invertible polynomials described in a previous paper is a particular case of this duality.
For isolated complex hypersurface singularities with real defining equation we show the existence of a monodromy vector field such that complex conjugation intertwines the local monodromy diffeomorphism with its inverse. In particular, it follows that the geometric monodromy is the composition of the involution induced by complex conjugation and another involution. This topological property holds for all isolated complex plane curve singularities. Using real morsifications, we compute the action of complex conjugation and of the other involution on the Milnor fiber of real plane curve singular…
We show that for a polynomial map, the size of the Jordan blocks for the eigenvalue 1 of the monodromy at infinity is bounded by the multiplicity of the reduced divisor at infinity of a good compactification of a general fiber. The existence of such Jordan blocks is related to global invariant cycles of the graded pieces of the weight filtration. These imply some applications to period integrals. We also show that such a Jordan block of size greater than 1 for the graded pieces of the weight filtration is the restriction of a strictly larger Jordan block for the total cohomology group. If ther…
We study the Euler characteristic of the real Milnor fibres of a real analytic map, using a relation between complex monodromy and complex conjugation. We deduce the result of Coste and Kurdyka that the Euler characteristic of the link of an irreducible algebraic subset of a real algebraic set is generically constant modulo 4. We generalize this result to iterated links of ordered families of algebraic subsets.
In this article, we consider the singularity of an arbitrary homogeneous polynomial with complex coefficients $f(x_0,\dots,x_n)$ at the origin of $\mathbb C^{n+1}$, via the study of the monodromy characteristic polynomials $Δ_l(t)$, and the relation between the monodromy zeta function and the Hodge spectrum of the singularity. We go further with $Δ_1(t)$ in the case $n=2$. This work is based on knowledge of multiplier ideals and local systems.
We express the Lefschetz number of iterates of the monodromy of a function on a smooth complex algebraic variety in terms of the Euler characteristic of a space of truncated arcs.
Given a complex analytic function with a one-dimensional critical locus at the origin, we examine the monodromy action on the integral cohomology of the Milnor fiber. We relate this monodromy to that of a generic hyperplane slice through the origin, and to that of a generic hyperplane slice near the origin. We thereby obtain number-theoretic restrictions on the monodromy and on the cohomology of the original Milnor fiber.
Let $A_g$ be an abelian variety of dimension $g$ and $p$-rank $λ\leq 1$ over an algebraically closed field of characteristic $p>0$. We compute the number of homomorphisms from $π_1^{\text{ét}}(A_g,a)$ to $GL_n(\mathbb F_q)$, where $q$ is any power of $p$. We show that for fixed $g$, $λ$, and $n$, the number of such representations is polynomial in $q$, and give an explicit formula for this polynomial. We show that the set of such homomorphisms forms a constructible set, and use the geometry of this space to deduce information about the coefficients and degree of the polynomial. In the last sec…