Milnor fibers of real line arrangements

Abstract

We study Milnor fibers of complexified real line arrangements. We give a new algorithm computing monodromy eigenspaces of the first cohomology. The algorithm is based on the description of minimal CW-complexes homotopic to the complements, and uses the real figure, that is, the adjacency relations of chambers. It enables us to generalize a vanishing result of Libgober, give new upper-bounds and characterize the $A_3$-arrangement in terms of non-triviality of Milnor monodromy.