Determining plane curve singularities from its polars (Q895559)

This paper addresses the problem of determining a plane curve singularity \(f\) from its polar curves. In the irreducible case, Merle proved that the polar invariants introduced by Teissier and the multiplicity determine the equisingularity class. This does not happen in the general case. One can find recent literature related with the general problem, and, in this paper, the authors give a complete solution. They consider, as an invariant, the weighted cluster of base points of polars of \(f\), introduced by Casas-Alvero and entirely computable from the polars. Then, the goal of the paper consists in giving an algorithm which explicitly recovers the weighted cluster of singular points of \(f\) from the mentioned cluster of base points of polars. The authors' procedure does not need any previous information on the topology of the curve and uses, as a new and interesting technique, a reinterpretation of the problem in terms of planar analytic morphisms.