The isotopy classification of affine quartic curves. (Q1414949)

The isotopy classification of real affine conics is trivial and contains six isotopy classes. So, the first interesting case concerns real cubics, which contains 21 classes, and it was obtained by the second author in [Rocky Mt. J. Math. 18, 665--679 (1988; Zbl 0668.14022)]. In the paper under review the authors obtain the isotopy classification of real affine quartic curves, which contains 647 classes. The authors credit the previous work in the subject by D. A. Gudkov, G. M. Polotovskii, G. A. Utkin and M. L. Tai concerning quartic curves, and the fundamental articles by \textit{E. I. Shustin} [Funct. Anal. Appl. 21, 82--84 (1987; Zbl 0627.14023)] and \textit{O. Ya. Viro} [``Generalization of Klein's formula and wave fronts'', Usp. Mat. Nauk 36 (1981)]. One of the main ingredients in the classification process is a proof for degree \(d=4\) of the following conjecture: Each isotopy class of plane affine algebraic curves of degree \(d\) without multiple components contains a singular-simple curve of degree \(d.\) Here, a curve is said to be singular-simple if its only singularities are either \(n\)-fold ordinary points or ordinary isolated double points. This 93-pages article, which contains many figures and explains everything in detail, contains many other interesting results. Among them it should be mentioned the isotopy classification of real real projective quartic curves, which contains 66 classes, and the topological classification of pairs (\(\mathbb R^2\), quartic curve), which contains 516 classes.