On the singularities of families of curve congruences on Lorentzian surfaces (Q315756)

The paper under review deals with the study of singularities of natural one-parameter families of three pairs of foliations on an oriented smooth Lorentzian surface \(M\) and their bifurcations. These families parametrize parts of the pencils of forms which link the equation of the asymptotic, characteristic and principal curves, respectively. The behaviour of these curves on Lorentzian surfaces is different from that on Riemannian surfaces, due to the existence of the light-like curves. The first author and \textit{F. Tari} [Proc. R. Soc. Edinb., Sect. A, Math. 141, No. 3, 655--672 (2011; Zbl 1221.53052)] defined and studied the families of \({\mathbb A}\)-conjugate curve congruences and the families of reflected \({\mathbb A}\)-curve congruences associated to a self-adjoint operator \({\mathbb A}\) on an oriented smooth Lorentzian surfaces. The present authors investigate the local configurations of these congruences. The singularities which can appear in these families and their bifurcations are studied. These results can be applied to time-like surfaces in the Minkowski space and in the de Sitter space, respectively.