A bound for the Milnor number of plane curve singularities

Abstract: Let

f = 0

be a plane algebraic curve of degree

d > 1

with an isolated singular point at the origin of the complex plane. We show that the Milnor number

m u_{0} (f)

is less than or equal to

(d - 1)^{2} - l e f t [f r a c d 2 i g h t]

, unless

f = 0

is a set of

d

concurrent lines passing through 0. Then we characterize the curves

f = 0

for which

m u_{0} (f) = (d - 1)^{2} - l e f t [f r a c d 2 i g h t]

.

Review text

The Milnor number of a curve \(f=0\) given by a polynomial \(f \in \mathbb{C}[x,y]\) with a singularity at the origin \(O\) is the value \(\mu(f) = \dim_\mathbb{C} \mathcal{O}_{\mathbb{C}^2,O} / \langle \partial f/\partial x, \partial f/\partial y \rangle\). Assume that \(d >1\) is the degree of \(f\), it is known that \(\mu(f) \leq (d-1)^2\) and the equality holds if and only if \(f\) is homogeneous. The paper is devoted to prove that if the order of \(f=0\) at \(O\) is less than \(d\), then \(\mu(f) \leq (d-1)^2 - [d/2]\), where \([\cdot]\) means the integer part. In addition it is shown that this bound is sharp. The author also includes another interesting result which states that if \(d >2\), \(d \neq 4\), the equality \(\mu(f) = (d-1)^2 - [d/2]\) is equivalent to the fact that \(f=0\) have \(d - [d/2]\) irreducible components and each irreducible component goes through the origin. In addition, if \(d\) is even all components are of degree 2 and intersect pairwise at \(O\) with multiplicity 4 and, otherwise, all but one components are of degree 2 intersecting pairwise at \(O\) with multiplicity 4 and the remaining component is linear and tangent to all components of degree 2.

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