Choking horns in Lipschitz geometry of complex algebraic varieties. Appendix by Walter D. Neumann (Q472103)

A subanalytic germ \(X\) at the origin of an Euclidean space equipped with the inner metric (the distance between two points is the infimum of the length of rectifiable curves lying in \(X\) and connecting the given two points) is called metrically conical if \(X\) is bi-Lipschitz homeomorphic to the cone over its link at the origin. The authors define choking horns in \(X\) as some families of cycles, which existence in \(X\) is an obstruction to metric conicalness of \(X\). They use them to prove that some classical isolated hypersurface singularities (Brieskorn hypersurface singularities) are not conical.