Resultants and Singularities of Parametric Curves

Abstract: Let

c a l C

be an algebraic space curve defined parametrically by

c a l P (t) i n B b b K (t)^{n},, n g e q 2

. In this paper, we introduce a polynomial, the T--function,

T (s)

, which is defined by means of a univariate resultant constructed from

c a l P (t)

. We show that

T (s) = p r o d_{i = 1}^{n} H_{P_{i}} (s)^{m_{i} - 1}

, where

H_{P_{i}} (s),, i = 1, l d o t s, n

are polynomials (called the fibre functions) whose roots are the fibre of the ordinary singularities

P_{i} i n c a l C

of multiplicity

m_{i},, i = 1, l d o t s, n

. Thus, a complete classification of the singularities of a given space curve, via the factorization of a resultant, is obtained.

This page was built for publication: Resultants and Singularities of Parametric Curves