The Milnor fibre signature is not semi-continuous

Abstract

Consider the germ of an isolated surface singularity in $(\mC^3,0)$. The corresponding Milnor fibre possesses the homology lattice (the integral middle homology with a natural symmetric intersection form). An old question of A.Durfee (1978) asks: is the signature of this form non-increasing under degenerations? The present article answers negatively: We give examples of Newton non-degenerate families where the signature increases under degeneration.