Completely reducible hypersurfaces in a pencil

Abstract

We study completely reducible fibers of pencils of hypersurfaces on $\mathbb P^n$ and associated codimension one foliations of $\mathbb P^n$. Using methods from theory of foliations we obtain certain upper bounds for the number of these fibers as functions only of $n$. Equivalently this gives upper bounds for the dimensions of resonance varieties of hyperplane arrangements. We obtain similar bounds for the dimensions of the characteristic varieties of the arrangement complements.