On the deformation chirality of real cubic fourfolds

According to our previous results, the conjugacy class of the involution induced by the complex conjugation in the homology of a real non-singular cubic fourfold determines the fourfold up to projective equivalence and deformation. Here, we show how to eliminate the projective equivalence and to obtain a pure deformation classification, that is how to respond to the chirality question: which cubics are not deformation equivalent to their image under a mirror reflection. We provide an arithmetical criterion of chirality, in terms of the eigen-sublattices of the complex conjugation involution in homology, and show how this criterion can be effectively applied taking as examples $M$-cubics (that is those for which the real locus has the richest topology) and $(M-1)$-cubics (the next case with respect to complexity of the real locus). It happens that there is one chiral class of $M$-cubics and three chiral classes of $(M-1)$-cubics, contrary to two achiral classes of $M$-cubics and three achiral classes of $(M-1)$-cubics.Comment: 25 pages, 8 figure

Deformation classification of real non-singular cubic threefolds with a marked line

We prove that the space of pairs $(X,l)$ formed by a real non-singular cubic hypersurface $X\subset P^4$ with a real line $l\subset X$ has 18 connected components and give for them several quite explicit interpretations. The first one relates these components to the orbits of the monodromy action on the set of connected components of the Fano surface $F_\mathbb{R}(X)$ formed by real lines on $X$. For another interpretation we associate with each of the 18 components a well defined real deformation class of real non-singular plane quintic curves and show that this deformation class together with the real deformation class of $X$ characterizes completely the component

The number of trees half of whose vertices are leaves and asymptotic enumeration of plane real algebraic curves

The number of topologically different plane real algebraic curves of a given degree $d$ has the form $\exp(C d^2 + o(d^2))$. We determine the best available upper bound for the constant $C$. This bound follows from Arnold inequalities on the number of empty ovals. To evaluate its rate we show its equivalence with the rate of growth of the number of trees half of whose vertices are leaves and evaluate the latter rate.Comment: 13 pages, 3 figure

On braid monodromy factorizations

We introduce and develop a language of semigroups over the braid groups for a study of braid monodromy factorizations (bmf's) of plane algebraic curves and other related objects. As an application we give a new proof of Orevkov's theorem on realization of a bmf over a disc by algebraic curves and show that the complexity of such a realization can not be bounded in terms of the types of the factors of the bmf. Besides, we prove that the type of a bmf is distinguishing Hurwitz curves with singularities of inseparable types up to $H$-isotopy and $J$-holomorphic cuspidal curves in \C P^2 up to symplectic isotopy.Comment: 52 pages, AMS-Te