English

Tropical curves of unibranch points and hypertangency

Algebraic Geometry 2026-03-17 v3

Abstract

We study integral plane curves meeting at a single unibranch point and show that such curves must satisfy two equivalent conditions. A numeric condition: the local invariants of the curves at the contact point must be arithmetically related. A geometric condition: the tropical curves that we associate to the contact point must be isomorphic. Moreover, we prove closed formulas for the delta-invariant of a unibranch singularity, and for the dimension of the loci of curves with an assigned unibranch point. Our work is motivated by interest in the Lang exceptional set.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2406.17392,
  title  = {Tropical curves of unibranch points and hypertangency},
  author = {Lucia Caporaso and Amos Turchet},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2406.17392},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

V3: minor changes. To be published in Pure and Applied Mathematics Quarterly