We introduce irregular constructible sheaves, which are ${\mathbb {C}}$-constructible with coefficients in a finite version of the Novikov ring $\Lambda$ and special gradings. We show that the bounded derived category of cohomologically irregular constructible complexes is equivalent to the bounded derived category of holonomic ${\mathcal {D}}$-modules by a modification of D’Agnolo and Kashiwara's irregular Riemann–Hilbert correspondence. The bounded derived category of cohomologically irregular constructible complexes is equipped with the irregular perverse $t$-structure, which is a straightforward generalization of usual perverse $t$-structure, and we prove that its heart is equivalent to the abelian category of holonomic ${\mathcal {D}}$-modules. We also develop the algebraic version of the theory.

We study Fourier transforms of regular holonomic ${\mathcal{D}}$-modules. In particular, we show that their solution complexes are monodromic. An application to direct images of some irregular holonomic ${\mathcal{D}}$-modules will be given. Moreover, we give a new proof of the classical theorem of Brylinski and improve it by showing its converse.

Using twisted nearby cycles, we define a new notion of slopes for complex holonomic ${\mathcal{D}}$ -modules. We prove a boundedness result for these slopes, study their functoriality and use them to characterize regularity. For a family of (possibly irregular) algebraic connections ${\mathcal{E}}_{t}$ parametrized by a smooth curve, we deduce under natural conditions an explicit bound for the usual slopes of the differential equation satisfied by the family of irregular periods of the ${\mathcal{E}}_{t}$ . This generalizes the regularity of the Gauss–Manin connection proved by Griffiths, Katz and Deligne.

The holonomic rank of the A-hypergeometric system MA(β) is the degree of the toric ideal IA for generic parameters; in general, this is only a lower bound. To the semigroup ring of A we attach the ranking arrangement and use this algebraic invariant and the exceptional arrangement of non-generic parameters to construct a combinatorial formula for the rank jump of MA(β). As consequences, we obtain a refinement of the stratification of the exceptional arrangement by the rank of MA(β) and show that the Zariski closure of each of its strata is a union of translates of linear subspaces of the parameter space. These results hold for generalized A-hypergeometric systems as well, where the semigroup ring of A is replaced by a non-trivial weakly toric module M⊆ℂ[ℤA] . We also provide a direct proof of the main result in [M. Saito, Isomorphism classes of A-hypergeometric systems, Compositio Math. 128 (2001), 323–338] regarding the isomorphism classes of MA (β) .

Let $Q\in{\mathbb C}[x_1,\dotsc,x_n]$ be a homogeneous polynomial of degree $k>0$. We establish a connection between the Bernstein–Sato polynomial $b_Q(s)$ and the degrees of the generators for the top cohomology of the associated Milnor fiber. In particular, the integer $u_Q={\rm max}\{i\in{\mathbb Z}:b_Q(-(i+n)/k)=0\}$ bounds the top degree (as differential form) of the elements in $H^{n-1}_{\rm DR}(Q^{-1}(1),{\mathbb C})$. The link is provided by the relative de Rham complex and ${\mathcal D}$-module algorithms for computing integration functors.

As an application we determine the Bernstein–Sato polynomial $b_Q(s)$ of a generic central arrangement $Q=\prod_{i=1}^kH_i$ of hyperplanes. In turn, we obtain information about the cohomology of the Milnor fiber of such arrangements related to results of Orlik and Randell who investigated the monodromy.

We also introduce certain subschemes of the arrangement determined by the roots of $b_Q(s)$. They appear to correspond to iterated singular loci.

We find explicit free resolutions for the D-modules Dfs and D[s] fs / D[s] fs+1, where f is a reduced equation of a locally quasi-homogeneous free divisor. These results are based on the fact that every locally quasi-homogeneous free divisor is Koszul free, which is also proved in this paper.