Lower central series and free resolutions of hyperplane arrangements

If $M$ is the complement of a hyperplane arrangement, and A=H^*(M,\k) is the cohomology ring of $M$ over a field of characteristic 0, then the ranks, $\phi_k$, of the lower central series quotients of $\pi_1(M)$ can be computed from the Betti numbers, b_{ii}=\dim_{\k} \Tor^A_i(\k,\k)_i, of the linear strand in a (minimal) free resolution of \k over $A$. We use the Cartan-Eilenberg change of rings spectral sequence to relate these numbers to the graded Betti numbers, b'_{ij}=\dim_{\k} \Tor^E_i(A,\k)_j, of a (minimal) resolution of $A$ over the exterior algebra $E$. From this analysis, we recover a formula of Falk for $\phi_3$, and obtain a new formula for $\phi_4$. The exact sequence of low degree terms in the spectral sequence allows us to answer a question of Falk on graphic arrangements, and also shows that for these arrangements, the algebra $A$ is Koszul iff the arrangement is supersolvable. We also give combinatorial lower bounds on the Betti numbers, $b'_{i,i+1}$, of the linear strand of the free resolution of $A$ over $E$; if the lower bound is attained for $i = 2$, then it is attained for all $i \ge 2$. For such arrangements, we compute the entire linear strand of the resolution, and we prove that all components of the first resonance variety of $A$ are local. For graphic arrangements (which do not attain the lower bound, unless they have no braid sub-arrangements), we show that $b'_{i,i+1}$ is determined by the number of triangles and $K_4$ subgraphs in the graph.Comment: 25 pages, to appear in Trans. Amer. Math. So

Resolutions and Cohomologies of Toric Sheaves. The affine case

We study equivariant resolutions and local cohomologies of toric sheaves for affine toric varieties, where our focus is on the construction of new examples of decomposable maximal Cohen-Macaulay modules of higher rank. A result of Klyachko states that the category of reflexive toric sheaves is equivalent to the category of vector spaces together with a certain family of filtrations. Within this setting, we develop machinery which facilitates the construction of minimal free resolutions for the smooth case as well as resolutions which are acyclic with respect to local cohomology functors for the general case. We give two main applications. First, over the polynomial ring, we determine in explicit combinatorial terms the Z^n-graded Betti numbers and local cohomology of reflexive modules whose associated filtrations form a hyperplane arrangement. Second, for the non-smooth, simplicial case in dimension d >= 3, we construct new examples of indecomposable maximal Cohen-Macaulay modules of rank d - 1.Comment: 39 pages, requires packages ams*, enumerat

Characteristic varieties and Betti numbers of free abelian covers

The regular \Z^r-covers of a finite cell complex X are parameterized by the Grassmannian of r-planes in H^1(X,\Q). Moving about this variety, and recording when the Betti numbers b_1,..., b_i of the corresponding covers are finite carves out certain subsets \Omega^i_r(X) of the Grassmannian. We present here a method, essentially going back to Dwyer and Fried, for computing these sets in terms of the jump loci for homology with coefficients in rank 1 local systems on X. Using the exponential tangent cones to these jump loci, we show that each \Omega-invariant is contained in the complement of a union of Schubert varieties associated to an arrangement of linear subspaces in H^1(X,\Q). The theory can be made very explicit in the case when the characteristic varieties of X are unions of translated tori. But even in this setting, the \Omega-invariants are not necessarily open, not even when X is a smooth complex projective variety. As an application, we discuss the geometric finiteness properties of some classes of groups.Comment: 40 pages, 2 figures; accepted for publication in International Mathematics Research Notice