Self-adjoint determinantal representations of real plane curves (Q1318069)

A self-adjoint determinantal representation \(U\) of a real projective plane curve \(X\) of degree \(n\) is a matrix of order \(n\) whose entries are linear in the homogeneous coordinates \(x_ 0,x_ 1,x_ 2\) such that \(\text{det} U=0\) is the equation of \(X\) and \(U\) is self-adjoint for all real values of the coordinates. We present a complete description of self-adjoint determinantal representations of real smooth plane curves. Any real smooth plane curve possesses self-adjoint determinantal representations. There is a one-to-one correspondence between equivalence classes, up to sign, of self-adjoint determinantal representations of a curve \(X\) of genus \(g\) and the points of the Jacobian variety of \(X\) in the disjoint union of certain real \(g\)-dimensional ``punctured'' tori; the punctures are coming from the intersection of these tori with the theta-divisor. When the set of real points of \(X\) consists of \(k>0\) connected components, these tori are naturally indexed by \((\mathbb{Z}/2)^{k-1}\). We derive a formula for the signature of a real linear combination \(c_ 0A_ 0+c_ 1A_ 1+c_ 2A_ 2\) of the coefficient matrices of a self- adjoint determinantal representation \(U=x_ 0A_ 0+x_ 1A_ 2+x_ 2A_ 2\) of \(X\) in terms of the index of the corresponding real torus and of the signs, in the sense of Rokhlin, of the real ovals of \(X\) enclosing the point \((c_ 0,c_ 1,c_ 2)\) in the real projective plane. In particular we show that the curve possesses definite determinantal representations if and only if its real locus contains a nest of ovals of maximal depth. -- Along the way we also present some results on the real structure of the Jacobian variety of a real smooth curve, which are mostly known but hard to find in the literature, and a description of real definite differentials on a real smooth curve.