Bifurcations of affine equidistants (Q600682)

In the continuation of previous studies of singularities [\textit{P. J. Giblin} and \textit{V. M. Zakalyukin}, Proc. Lond. Math. Soc., III. Ser. 90, No. 1, 132--166 (2005; Zbl 1068.57028); Geom. Dedicata, 130, 43--58 (2007; Zbl 1148.58016)] arising from families of chords intrinsically attached to a hypersurface \(M\subset \mathbb R^n\) embedded in an affine space, the authors investigate the generic bifurcations of affine equidistants (the sets of points of these chords dividing the chord segments between the base points with a fixed ratio \(\lambda\), called the affine time) at the variation of affine time. In this article all bifurcations of affine equidistants for a surface in three-space are classified and geometrically described. The most interesting case arises when the manifold \(M\) is not convex, in particular, arbitrary close to an ordinary inflection at \(n=2\) or a parabolic point for \(n=3\). All singularities turn out to be stable and simple.