Pencils and critical loci on normal surfaces (Q2231584)

Let \((Z,z)\) be a normal complex surface singularity and let \(f,g \in \mathcal O_{Z,z}\) be germs of holomorphic functions which induce a finite morphism \(\pi=(f,g): (Z,z) \to (\mathbb C^2, o)\) of germs. This paper studies the pencil \(\Lambda=\{ w_2f-w_1g \; | \; (w_1: w_2)\in \mathbb C \mathbb P^1 \}\) using the minimal good resolution \(\rho : (Y,E) \to (Z,z)\) of \(\Lambda\), which is a good resolution of \(\{fg=0\} \subset Z\) and the induced map \((f : g) \circ \rho : Y \to \mathbb C \mathbb P^1\) is a morphism. The authors define a generic (resp. special) fiber of \(\Lambda\) and describe the topological type of generic elements of the pencil and the critical locus of \(\pi\), and characterize the behavior of special elements. For example, it is proved that generic members have the same topological type, and a member \(\phi\in \Lambda\) is special if and only if \(\mu (\phi) > \min\{\mu(\psi) \; | \; \psi \in \Lambda\}\), where \(\mu\) denotes the Milnor number. The last section of the paper provides some concrete examples which show the computation of key invariants in the main results.