Cohomology of regular differential forms for affine curves

Abstract

Let $C$ be a complex affine reduced curve, and denote by $H^1(C)$ its first truncated cohomology group, i.e. the quotient of all regular differential 1-forms by exact 1-forms. First we introduce a nonnegative invariant $\mu'(C,x)$ that measures the complexity of the singularity of $C$ at the point $x$. Then, if $H_1(C)$ denotes the first singular homology group of $C$ with complex coefficients, we establish the following formula: $$ dim H^1(C)=dim H_1(C) + \sum_{x\in C} \mu'(C,x) $$ Second we consider a family of curves given by the fibres of a dominant morphism $f:X\to \mathbb{C}$, where $X$ is an irreducible complex affine surface. We analyze the behaviour of the function $y\mapsto dim H^1(f^{-1}(y))$. More precisely, we show that it is constant on a Zariski open set, and that it is lower semi-continuous in general.