English

Morse theory for plane algebraic curves

Geometric Topology 2014-02-26 v2 Algebraic Geometry

Abstract

We use Morse theoretical arguments to study algebraic curves in C^2. We take an algebraic curve C in C^2 and intersect it with a family of spheres with fixed origin and varying radii. We explain in detail how does the resulting link change when we cross a singular point of C. Applying link invariants as Murasugi's signature and Levine--Tristram signatures we obtain some informations about possible singularities of a curve C in terms of its topology.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1101.1870,
  title  = {Morse theory for plane algebraic curves},
  author = {Maciej Borodzik},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1101.1870},
  year   = {2014}
}

Comments

31 pages, 9 figures. Many improvements since the last version. Proof of Proposition 2.9 completely rewritten, altough still long and technical

R2 v1 2026-06-21T17:09:52.560Z