Notes on the boundaries of quadrature domains (Q1999846)

An apparently innocent condition that a bounded planar domain carries the same quadrature nodes and weights for all integrable analytic functions has quite unexpected consequences. Such sets, called \textit{quadrature domains}, were isolated in the landmark article [\textit{D. Aharonov} and \textit{H. S. Shapiro}, J. Anal. Math. 30, 39--73 (1976; Zbl 0337.30029)]. It turns out that conformal images of the unit disk by rational functions are quadrature domains. And much more, for instance: any planar domain can be approximated with respect to Hausdorff distance by a quadrature domain: [\textit{B. Gustafsson}, Acta Appl. Math. 1, 209--240 (1983; Zbl 0559.30039)]. We owe to the late Makoto Sakai the deep study of the free boundary regularity arising from the existence of such, and even more general, cubature formulas: [\textit{M. Sakai}, Acta Math. 166, No. 3--4, 263--297 (1991; Zbl 0728.30007)]. The article by Kaushal Verma offers a fresh look, from skratch, at the main properties of boundaries of quadrature domains: notably real algebraicity and classification of singular points. In contrast to his predecessors, the author is relying on several complex variable techniques, as advocated by [\textit{E. M. Chirka}, Math. USSR, Sb. 45, 291--335 (1983; Zbl 0525.32005); translation from Mat. Sb., Nov. Ser. 117(159), 291--336 (1982)]. In his study, Verma exploits the embedding of a quadrature domain in higher-dimensional complex projective space, with the boundary lying on a real quadric, an observation appearing in [\textit{B. Gustafsson} and \textit{M. Putinar}, Isr. J. Math. 119, 187--216 (2000; Zbl 0968.30016)].