Singularities of tangent surfaces to generic space curves (Q2397256)

The authors give a complete solution to the local diffeomorphism classification problem of generic singularities in tangent surfaces for an immersed curve in a (semi-) Riemannian manifold, more generally, an affine connection. Let \(\nabla\) be a torsion free affine connection on a manifold \(M\). Let \(\gamma: I\longrightarrow M\) be a \(C^{\infty}\) curve from an open interval \(I\). Among other results, the authors prove that, if \(\dim M=3\) and if \((\nabla\gamma)(t_{0})\), \((\nabla^{2}\gamma)(t_{0})\), \((\nabla^{3}\gamma)(t_{0})\) are linearly independent, then the \(\nabla\)-tangent surface \(\nabla\)-Tan(\(\gamma\)) is locally diffeomorphic to the cuspidal edge at \((t_{0}, 0)\in I\times\mathbb{R}\). Moreover, if \(\dim M\geq 4\) and if \((\nabla\gamma)(t_{0})\), \((\nabla^{2}\gamma)(t_{0})\), \((\nabla^{3}\gamma)(t_{0})\) are linearly independent, then the \(\nabla\)-tangent surface \(\nabla\)-Tan(\(\gamma\)) is locally diffeomorphic to the embedded cuspidal edge at \((t_{0}, 0)\in I\times\mathbb{R}\).