Caustics by reflexion in the extended plane (Q790439)

The authors continue their study of caustics of plane curves. The paper again contains lovely computer pictures. It introduces a systematic way to use Thom's transversality theorem for genericity proofs by simply computing some Jacobians. They introduce a new curve associated with a smooth curve in the plane, the locus of the foci of the osculating parabolas. The first theorem states that if all vertices of an oval are simple (all zeros of k' are simple) then that ''focoid'' has one or two branches depending on whether the number of vertices is \(\equiv 2(mod 4)\) or not. The main results concern generic singularities of caustics. It is shown that for variations of the curve the generic caustic for parallel light of a smooth oval has only cusps and non-tangential crossings as singularities. An example shows that there exist smooth ovals which for every direction of parallel light have caustics with triple points; the caustics for fixed ovals cannot be made generic by variation of the light source.