Monodromy of plane curves and quasi-ordinary surfaces

Abstract

We develop recursive formulas for the horizontal and vertical monodromies of a quasi-ordinary surface. These are monodromies associated to the Milnor fiber of a slice transverse to a component of the singular locus. In the course of working out these recursions, we have discovered what appears to be a new way to express the monodromy associated to the Milnor fibration of a singular plane curve.