On rational cuspidal plane curves and the local cohomology of Jacobian rings (Q2301916)

Let \(S = \mathbb{C}[x,y,z]\) be the graded polynomial ring and let \(C : f=0\) be a reduced curve of degree \(d\) in the complex projective plane. The minimal degree of a Jacobian relation for the polynomial \(f\) is the integer \(\mathrm{mdr}(f)\) defined to be the smallest integer \(m\geq0\) such that there is a non-trivial relation \[ af_{x} + bf_{y} + cf_{z} = 0 \] among the partial derivatives \(f_{x},f_{y},f_{z}\) with the coefficients \(a,b,c \in S_{m}\). If \(\mathrm{mdr}(f)=0\), then \(C\) is a pencil of lines. For a curve \(C\) we denote by \(\tau(C)\) the total Tjurina number and by \(J_{f}\) the Jacobian ideal of \(f\). We define the Milnor algebra \(M(f) :=S / J_{f}\). Denote by \(I_{f}\) the saturation of \(J_{f}\) with respect to the ideal \((x,y,z)\) and consider \(N(f) = I_{f} / J_{f}\). Let \(n(f)_{k} = \dim\, N(f)_{k}\) for an integer \(k\) and we set \[\nu(C) = \max_{j} \, \{ n(f)_{j}\}.\] In the paper under review the author provides an interesting description of rational cuspdal curves with weighted homogeneous singularities. Proposition 1. Let \(C : f = 0\) be an irreducible curve in the complex projective plane of degree \(d\geq 6\). The following properties are equivalent: i) \(\tau(C) \geq d^2 - 4d + 8\); ii) \(r = \mathrm{mdr}(f) = 1\); iii) \(C\) is a rational cuspidal curve with weighted homogeneous singularities. The above proposition allows to give the following classification result. Main Theorem. Let \(C\) be a rational cuspidal curve of degree \(d\geq 6\) such that \(C\) has only weighted homogeneous singularities. Then \(C\) is projective equivalent to exactly one of the following \(\phi(d)/2\) models \[C_{d,k} : y^{d} + x^{k}z^{d-k},\] where \(k\) is the integer with \(1 \leq k < d/2\), \(k\) is relative prime to \(d\), and \(\phi(\cdot )\) is the Euler function. The second main result of the paper, a general one, gives an interesting description of \(\nu(C)\). Theorem 1. Let \(C : f = 0\) be a reduced plane curve of degree \(d\) and let \(r = \mathrm{mdr}(f)\). Then the following conditions hold: i) if \(r < d/2\), then \(\nu(C) = (d-1)^{2} - r(d-1-r) - \tau(C)\); ii) if \(r \geq (d-2)/2\), then \[ \nu(C) =\bigg\lceil \frac{3}{4}(d-1)^{2} \bigg\rceil - \tau(C). \] At last, the author proposes a stronger version (or variation) on Terao's conjecture for line arrangements in the complex projective plane. Conjecture. If \(\mathcal{L}\) is an arrangement of lines in the complex projective plane, then the invariant \(\nu(\mathcal{L})\) is combinatorially determined.