Spacelike framed curves with lightlike components and singularities of their evolutes and focal surfaces in Minkowski 3-space (Q6580091)

This paper studies the local geometry and invariants of framed spacelike curves with lightlike components in Minkowski 3-space. Previous works have focused on regular spacelike curves (e.g. [\textit{S. Izumiya} et al., Glasg. Math. J. 42, No. 1, 75--89 (2000; Zbl 0970.53015)]) or on Euclidean framed curves (e.g. [\textit{S. Honda} and \textit{M. Takahashi}, Adv. Geom. 16, No. 3, 265--276 (2016; Zbl 1386.58021)]), but this paper studies spacelike framed curves with lightlike components in Minkowski 3-space, and the authors define the evolute and focal surface for such curves. The idea of the frame is similar to that of the well-known Frenet-Serret frame, but inspired by the Bishop frame [\textit{R. L. Bishop}, Am. Math. Mon. 82, 246--251 (1975; Zbl 0298.53001)], the version the authors use has the advantage that singularities are allowed in the original spacelike framed curves with lightlike components. The authors find new geometric invariants to characterise the singularities of the focal surface and evolutes and give a classification and recognition criteria for the singularities of these in the generic case. In the final section, an example of a spacelike curve in Minkowski 3-space with a cusp at the origin is given and includes a figure showing the original curve together with its evolute.