Hyperplane arrangements and linear strands in resolutions

Abstract

The cohomology ring of the complement of a central complex hyperplane arrangement is the well-studied Orlik-Solomon algebra. The homotopy group of the complement is interesting, complicated, and few results are known about it. We study the ranks for the lower central series of such a homotopy group via the linear strand of the minimal free resolution of the field C \mathbf {C} over the Orlik-Solomon algebra.