Complex and tropical counts via positive characteristic (Q2105657)

The authors consider some classical enumerative questions in algebraic geometry whose answer differs from the answer to the analogous question in the setting of tropical geometry. An instance of this phenomenon is the number of flexes of a general plane complex curve of degree \(d\ge 3\), which is equal to \(3d(d-2)\), while the tropical analogue is \(d(d-2)\) and coincides with the number of flexes in characteristic 3. In all the examples considered in the paper the situation is similar: there is a prime \(p\) such that the ratio (char \(0\) count)/(tropical count) is a power of \(p\) and the tropical count coincides with the characteristic \(p\) one. Motivated by this observation, the authors investigate the algebraic geometry side of the question and show that in each case the multiplicities in the count in characteristic \(p\) are the ramification indices in the reduction from characteristic zero to characteristic \(p\), where \(p\) is the relevant prime.