Geometry of obstructed families of curves (Q886262)

The paper addresses the local geometric properties of minimally obstructed equisingular families of plane curves with one semiquasihomogeneous singularity, where the minimal obstructedness means that the space of obstructions to the versality of the deformation, induced by curves of a given degree, is one-dimensional. This case covers, in particular, the examples of \textit{A. A. du Plessis} and \textit{C. T. C. Wall} [J. Algebr. Geom 9, No. 2, 309--322 (2000; Zbl 1006.14011)]. The main result states that in all but finitely many cases the germ of the corresponding equisingular family is reduced irreducible of expected dimension, and it has a smooth singular locus with sectional singularity of type \(A_1\). The proof involves the computer algebra system SINGULAR for computing equisingular deformations.