Torsion in the homology of Milnor fibers of hyperplane arrangements

Abstract

As is well-known, the homology groups of the complement of a complex hyperplane arrangement are torsion-free. Nevertheless, as we showed in a recent paper [arXiv:1209.3414] the homology groups of the Milnor fiber of such an arrangement can have non-trivial integer torsion. We give here a brief account of the techniques that go into proving this result, outline some of its applications, and indicate some further questions that it brings to light.