No label defined (Q4440918)

Let \(\text{Sym}(n,\mathbb{K})\) be the space of \(n\times n\) symmetric matrices with coefficients in the field \(\mathbb{K}\) of real or complex numbers. The author classifies germs of smooth families of symmetric matrices by smooth change of parameters and parameterised conjugation: if \(\mathcal{R}\) denotes the group of diffeomorphisms \((\mathbb{K}^{r},0)\rightarrow (\mathbb{ K}^{r},0)\) and \(\mathcal{H}\) denotes the group of germs of smooth mappings \(( \mathbb{K}^{r},0)\rightarrow GL(n,\mathbb{K}),\) two germs \(A,B:(\mathbb{K} ^{r},0)\rightarrow Sym(n,\mathbb{K})\) are \(\mathcal{G}=\mathcal{R}\times \mathcal{H}\) equivalent if and only if for some \((\phi ,X)\in \mathcal{R} \times \mathcal{H},B=X^{T}(A\circ \phi ^{-1})X.\) In the paper, the framework is developed over the fields \(\mathbb{R}\) and \( \mathbb{C}\), but the simple singularities are listed only over \(\mathbb{C}\), in concrete, pairs \((r,n)\) for which there exist simple germs \((\mathbb{C}^{r},0)\rightarrow \text{Sym}(n,\mathbb{C})\) are determined. It is finalized with the investigation of the geometry of the germs obtained above and it is studied in more detail for the case \(n=r=2.\) The realized study might be viewed as a nonlinear version of linear systems of quadrics and it is motivated from the investigation of binary differential equations \(a(x,y)dy^{2}+2b(x,y)dxdy+c(x,y)dx^{2}=0\) where \(a,b,c\) are smooth real functions in \((x,y)\). The interest is to determine how the discriminants \(b^{2}-ac\) will vary in a generic family of binary differential equations, viewed as a family of quadratic forms, and their associated surfaces.