On the geometric structure of certain real algebraic surfaces (Q1681816)

The authors study the affine geometry of the graph of a polynomial \(f\in \mathbb{R}[x,y]\), leading to two main results. The first result shows that when \(f\) has degree \(n\geq 3\) and the homogenous component \(f_n\) has nonpositive (nonnegative) Hessian polynomial with no real linear factors, then the image of the parabolic curve under the projection \(\pi:\mathbb{R}^3\to \mathbb{R}^2,\;(x,y,z)\mapsto (x,y)\) is compact and the unbounded component of its complement is hyperbolic (elliptic). The second result gives the index formula \[ \sum_{\xi\in \text{sing}(\tilde{\mathbb{X}})}\text{Ind}_{\xi}(\widetilde{\mathbb{X}})=\chi(B^{\epsilon})+\frac{P_i-P_e}{2}\;. \] The formula involves an extension \(\widetilde{\mathbb{X}}\) of the field of asymptotics \(\mathbb{X}\) to a hemisphere of \(S^2\) (via the Poincaré projections \(s_{1},s_2:\mathbb{R}^2\to S^2\)). The spaces \(B^{\epsilon}\), \(\epsilon=\pm\) are defined to be the closure of two smooth surfaces \(b^{\epsilon}\) -- one orientable, one nonorientable -- whose union is the complement of the image of the parabolic curve under \(\pi\) (taken in \(\mathbb{R} P^2)\). The numbers \(P_i\) and \(P_e\) count the number of godrons on the parabolic curve, with interior and exterior tangency (respectively).