Periods of hyperplane arrangements and multiple polylogarithms

Abstract

We compute the periods associated with a special class of hyperplane arrangements. In particular, we exhibit a combinatorial condition on the intersection lattice of a hyperplane arrangement that ensures that its associated periods are linear combinations of special values of multiple polylogarithms. Our method generalizes Brown's approach to the periods of moduli spaces of curves of genus zero. We apply this result to the reflection arrangement of the full monomial group, whose periods are shown to be linear combinations of values of multiple polylogarithms at roots of unity.