Degree and class of caustics by reflection for a generic source (Q351382): Difference between revisions

Let \(C \subset \mathbb {P}^2(\mathbb {C})\) be an irreducible curve of degree \(d\geq 2\). For each \(P\in \mathbb {P}^2(\mathbb {C})\) the caustic (or caustic by reflection) \(\Sigma _P(C)\) is the Zariski closure of the envelope of all lines coming from \(P\) and reflected by \(C\). In this note the authors prove that for a general \(P\) the caustic map is birational. The novelty with respect to an old (unpublished, but cited in this note) work is that this is true for all irreducible \(C\)'s, not just for a general curve of each degree. The degree (\(=1\)) entered in their formulas of the degree and the class of \(\Sigma _S(C)\) printed respectively in [\textit{A. Josse} and \textit{F. Pène}, ``On the degree of caustics by reflection'', Commun. Algebra (accepted)], [\textit{A. Josse} and \textit{F. Pène}, ``On the class of caustic by reflexion'', preprint, \url{arXiv:1210.6651}].