On the duals of smooth projective complex hypersurfaces

Publication date: 17 January 2023

Abstract: We show in this note that a generic hypersurface

V

of degree

d g e q 3

in the complex projective space

m a t h b b P^{n}

of dimension

n g e q 3

has at least one hyperplane section

V c a p H

containing exactly

n

ordinary double points, alias

A_{1}

singularities, in general position, and no other singularities. Equivalently, the dual hypersurface

V^{v e e}

has at least one normal crossing singularity of multiplicity

n

. Using this result, we show that the dual of any smooth hypersurface with

n, d g e q 3

has at least a very singular point

q

, in particular a point

q

of multiplicity

g e q n

.

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