Intersection complex 2026-10-14
The degree-zero normalized Deligne intersection complex extends the constant sheaf from the regular stratum by successive derived direct images and cohomological truncations at degree when codimension- strata are added. Its hypercohomology defines intersection cohomology. On a cone with vertex of codimension , its local cohomology is the link intersection cohomology in degrees at most and zero above.
For an isolated singular point of an -dimensional oriented pseudomanifold, the unshifted middle intersection complex restricts to on the regular stratum and has no negative cohomology. Its support condition is for ; its cosupport condition is for . These conditions, together with constructibility and normalization, characterize it. On a Witt space they are exchanged by .
Put and let be the cone vertex. Specify the convention away from the Witt case: first take intersection cohomology to mean the hypercohomology of the intersection complex , normalized in degree zero on the regular stratum. The lower middle perversity at the vertex is . The standard local cone calculation for this convention says
and restriction to is the identity below the cutoff. Here this can also be read directly from the construction , with : punctured conical neighbourhoods retract onto , and the truncation discards the degrees above .
Define relative intersection cohomology as the hypercohomology of the homotopy fibre of restriction, namely . Restricting to the pair gives a map to the corresponding ordinary relative cohomology, since . The induced map of exact triangles gives the requested commutative diagram:
Both rows are long exact cohomology sequences of a pair. Commutativity includes the connecting homomorphisms, because they arise from the same map of restriction cones, with a common sign convention. The relative vertical maps are isomorphisms: excision removes the common conical neighbourhood, leaving precisely the manifold pair outside it, where is constant. Also the collar retracts onto , so .
The only possible nonmanifold stratum is , with link of dimension . Since intersection homology of a manifold is ordinary homology, the exact necessary and sufficient condition is
The equivalence with the defining follows from the universal coefficient theorem for cohomology over . In the Witt case the cone restriction is an isomorphism through degree , since both degree- groups are zero. Comparing the two exact rows, or applying the Five lemma to each five-term segment, gives for . For , both and vanish, so the top row identifies the absolute group with the relative one. Hence
Without the Witt hypothesis, comparison still gives for . At degree the upper row reads
The lower row identifies the quotient by with the image of the relative-to-absolute map. In higher degrees both cone terms vanish. Thus the full lower-middle Deligne answer is
For clarity, if is instead defined as the linear dual of the lower-middle intersection chains of question 1, it corresponds to the complementary upper middle perversity Deligne sheaf. Its cone group retains as well. The same diagram then gives
Equivalently the exceptional group is . These conventions agree under the stated Witt condition, explaining why that condition removes the ambiguity.
Take the solid torus , whose boundary is the two-dimensional torus . Its ordinary cohomology is , zero otherwise; Poincare duality for a manifold with boundary gives and all other relative groups zero. The lower-middle Deligne formula gives
Thus degrees one and two have different dimensions, so there can be no three-dimensional Poincare duality. In the dual-lower-chain convention the dimensions are , which likewise fail duality. Both computations exhibit the obstruction .
All cohomology below has rational coefficients. First describe the incidence space geometrically. The image of is , inside . For a line , choosing a plane containing is equivalent to choosing the line in . If is the tautological line bundle on , then
This is the projective bundle of a rank-three quotient bundle, with fibre . Local frames of the quotient bundle give local product charts. In particular is an oriented real six-dimensional manifold.
For , the intersection is exactly a line, so is a single point and the inverse map is . The intersection line varies continuously, indeed holomorphically, wherever its dimension is constant: in local Grassmannian charts it is the kernel of a matrix of constant rank, whose kernel bases can be chosen locally. Thus is an isomorphism over the open stratum. At the remaining point,
Set , a derived direct image of sheaves. The proper base change for sheaves theorem identifies its derived stalks with the cohomology complexes of the fibres. Consequently is the constant rational sheaf in degree zero on , and
The cohomology sheaves are therefore finite-rank local systems on the two strata, with no other nonzero degrees. This proves that is a constructible complex of sheaves and verifies normalization. The open stratum has real dimension six, so the isolated point has codimension six. Its middle perversity is , and the intersection-complex support and cosupport axioms require stalk vanishing in degrees above two. The fibre calculation verifies the support axiom, as well as vanishing in negative degrees.
For an oriented real six-dimensional manifold, Verdier duality gives . For a proper map, Verdier duality commutes with derived direct image. Applying these statements here yields
The duality identity converts this into
Here is the costalk, and dualization of rational complexes reverses degrees. Thus its only nonzero groups are in degrees four and six. In particular they vanish for , which is precisely the cosupport axiom at this isolated six-dimensional singularity. The uniqueness characterization by constructibility, normalization, support and cosupport now identifies with the unshifted intersection complex of . Taking hypercohomology, and using the composition of derived global sections with , gives
Finally apply the fibration result allowed in the question to . Its base is the simply connected complex projective line, its fibre is the Complex projective plane, and the projective-bundle charts above verify the fibration hypothesis. Hence, as graded rational vector spaces,
The resulting Betti numbers and Poincaré polynomial are
This uses with . No assertion that an arbitrary projective fibration has the product cohomology ring is needed.