Geometry of obstructed equisingular families of projective hypersurfaces

We study geometric properties of certain obstructed equisingular families of projective hypersurfaces with emphasis on smoothness, reducibility, being reduced, and having expected dimension. In the case of minimal obstructness, we give a detailed description of such families corresponding to quasihomogeneous singularities. Next we study the behavior of these properties with respect to stable equivalence of singularities. We show that under certain conditions, stabilization of singularities ensures the existence of a reduced component of expected dimension. For minimally obstructed families the whole family becomes irreducible. As an application we show that if the equisingular family of a projective hypersurface H has a reduced component of expected dimension then the deformation of H induced by the linear system |H| is complete with respect to one-parameter deformations.Comment: 30 pages. v2: more detailed explanations. v3: minor corrections, version to appear in the Journal of Pure and Applied Algebr

On the enumeration of complex plane curves with two singular points

We study equi-singular strata of plane curves with two singular points of prescribed types. The method of the previous work [Kerner06] is generalized to this case. In particular we consider the enumerative problem for plane curves with two singular points of linear singularity types. First the problem for two ordinary multiple points of fixed multiplicities is solved. Then the enumeration for arbitrary linear types is reduced to the case of ordinary multiple points and to the understanding of "merging" of singular points. Many examples and numerical answers are given.Comment: 24 pages, the Mathematica file with explicit calculations is attached. Some typos removed. To appear in the International Mathematics Research Notice

Minimal generating sets of non-modular invariant rings of finite groups

It is a classical problem to compute a minimal set of invariant polynomial generating the invariant ring of a finite group as an algebra. We present here an algorithm for the computation of minimal generating sets in the non-modular case. Apart from very few explicit computations of Groebner bases, the algorithm only involves very basic operations, and is thus rather fast. As a test bed for comparative benchmarks, we use transitive permutation groups on 7 and 8 variables. In most examples, our algorithm implemented in Singular works much faster than the one used in Magma, namely by factors between 50 and 1000. We also compute some further examples on more than 8 variables, including a minimal generating set for the natural action of the cyclic group of order 11 in characteristic 0 and of order 15 in characteristic 2. We also apply our algorithm to the computation of irreducible secondary invariants.Comment: 14 pages v3: Timings updated. One example adde

Some remarks on the planar Kouchnirenko's Theorem

We consider different notions of non-degeneracy, as introduced by Kouchnirenko (NND), Wall (INND) and Beelen-Pellikaan (WNND) for plane curve singularities $\{f(x,y) = 0\}$ and introduce the new notion of weighted homogeneous Newton non-degeneracy (WHNND). It is known that the Milnor number $\mu$ resp. the delta-invariant $\delta$ can be computed by explicit formulas $\mu_N$ resp. $\delta_N$ from the Newton diagram of $f$ if $f$ is NND resp. WNND. It was however unknown whether the equalities $\mu=\mu_N$ resp. $\delta=\delta_N$ can be characterized by a certain non-degeneracy condition on $f$ and, if so, by which one. We show that $\mu=\mu_N$ resp. $\delta=\delta_N$ is equivalent to INND resp. WHNND and give some applications and interesting examples related to the existence of "wild vanishing cycles". Although the results are new in any characteristic, the main difficulties arise in positive characteristic.Comment: 23 pages, 2 figures. Final versio