Characteristic varieties of quasi-projective manifolds and orbifolds

Enrique Artal Bartolo, Jose Ignacio Cogolludo-Agustin, Daniel Matei

Published 2010-05-26, updated 2012-04-28Version 4

We prove that the irreducible components of the characteristic varieties of quasi-projective manifolds are either pull-backs of such components for orbifolds, or torsion points. This gives an interpretation for the so-called \emph{translated} components of the characteristic varieties, and shows that the zero-dimensional components are indeed torsion. The main result is used to derive further obstructions for a group to be the fundamental group of a quasi-projective manifold.