Whitney's umbrellas in stable perturbations of a map germ \((\mathbb R^n,0)\to (\mathbb R^{2n-1},0)\) (Q2372719)

The main result of the article proves the following fact. Let \(f:({\mathbb R}^n,0)\to ({\mathbb R}^{2n-1},0)\) be a generic smooth map-germ. Let \({\mathcal I}(f)\) be the ideal generated by the \(n\times n\) minor determinants of the Jacobian matrix of \(f\). Then, if the codimension \(c(f)\) of \({\mathcal I}(f)\) in the ring of smooth function-germs in \(n\) variables is finite, the number of Whitney's umbrellas that appear in a stable permutation of \(f\) is a topological invariant. In fact, the number of Whitney's umbrellas is equal to \(c(f)\) modulo 2, a fact which follows from the work of D. Mond, J. Nuño Ballesteros, M. Saia and T. Fukui. The topological characterization is done via the number of (branches of the) double point set of a proper representative mapping of \(f\). The article contains a nice historical presentation, too (presenting the complex situation as well), and a list of examples.