Abstract: | If is the complement of a hyperplane arrangement, and is the cohomology ring of over a field of characteristic , then the ranks, , of the lower central series quotients of can be computed from the Betti numbers, , of the linear strand in a minimal free resolution of over . We use the Cartan-Eilenberg change of rings spectral sequence to relate these numbers to the graded Betti numbers, , of a minimal resolution of over the exterior algebra . From this analysis, we recover a formula of Falk for , and obtain a new formula for . The exact sequence of low-degree terms in the spectral sequence allows us to answer a question of Falk on graphic arrangements, and also shows that for these arrangements, the algebra is Koszul if and only if the arrangement is supersolvable. We also give combinatorial lower bounds on the Betti numbers, , of the linear strand of the free resolution of over ; if the lower bound is attained for , then it is attained for all . For such arrangements, we compute the entire linear strand of the resolution, and we prove that all components of the first resonance variety of are local. For graphic arrangements (which do not attain the lower bound, unless they have no braid subarrangements), we show that is determined by the number of triangles and subgraphs in the graph. |