The local polynomial hull near a degenerate CR singularity: Bishop discs revisited (Q444156)

The author studies the following problem. Given a real surface in \(\mathbb C^{2}\) (sufficiently smooth) and a point in this surface at which the tangent plane to the surface is complex (that is the surface has a CR singularity at this point) determine whether or not the surface is locally polynomially convex at this point. If the point is not a parabolic-type singularity (which is known to cause many problems) and moreover the surface is thin at this point then one has a beautiful relation with the Maslov index. Namely if the Maslov index is positive, then the surface can not be locally polynomially convex. A conjecture is stated that more or less the reverse implication holds, that is in all cases when again the singularity is non-parabolic and the surface is thin at the point, the surface being locally polynomially convex at the point is equivalent to non-positivity of the Maslov index. In the paper ``thinness'' is the property of being locally a graph of some special function and should not be confused with flatness.