Behavior of principal curvatures of frontals near non-front singular points and their applications (Q824302)

In the last decade the study of the behaviour of certain invariants as the Gaussian curvature near singular points of surfaces has become of great interest for differential geometers and singularists. In this paper the authors study the behaviour of principal curvatures near frontal type singularities which are not of wave front type. A 3/2-cuspidal edge or a swallowtail point are examples of wave front type singularities, whereas a cuspidal cross-cap or a 5/2-cuspidal edge are examples of frontal type singularities which are not wave fronts. The authors define two different types of non-front frontal type singularities, the pure-frontals, of which the 5/2-cuspidal edge is an example, and the \(k\)-non-fronts, of which the cuspidal \(S_k\) singularities are an example. For the pure-frontals the authors give a necessary and sufficient condition in terms of certain geometrical invariants, such as the limiting normal curvature or the cusp directional torsion, in order for the principal curvatures to be extended as \(C^{\infty}\) functions near the singular point. For the \(k\)-non-front points they show that one principal curvature can be extended as a \(C^{\infty}\) function along the singular curve if \(k\) is even, and one principal curvature can be extended on one side of the singular curve and the other principal curvature can be extended on the other side if \(k\) is odd. Finally, as an application, they extend the notion of Ribacour transformations to frontals by using the frame of curvature lines.