Singularities of flat fronts in hyperbolic space (Q2493349)

Let \(M^2\) and \(N^3\) be Riemannian manifolds, \(f:M^2\to N^2\) be a wave front (that is, the projection of a Legendrian immersion into the unit cotangent bundle of \(N^3\)). In this paper the authors derive the conditions for a point \(p\in M^2\) to be singular and for the image of \(f\) around a singular point \(p\) to be locally diffeomorphic to a cuspidal edge or a swallowtail in the case when \(N^3=H^3\) is the hyperbolic 3-space, \(M^2\) is a simply-connected Riemann surface, and \(f\) is flat. These conditions are given in terms of two holomorphic forms on \(M^2\). Using the criteria obtained the authors prove that if \(f:M\to H^3\) is a complete flat front which is not a covering of an hourglass and if \(\{f_t\}\) is the family of parallel fronts of \(f\), then, except for finitely many values of \(f\), all the singular points of \(f_t\) are locally diffeomorphic to cuspidal edges or swallowtails.