Expo. Math. 23 (2005) 233–254 www.elsevier.de/exmath Singularities of plane algebraic curves Jonathan A. Hillman∗ School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia Received 25 August 2004 Abstract We give an exposition of some of the basic results on singularities of plane algebraic curves, in terms of polynomials and formal power series. ᭧ 2005 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved. MSC 2000: primary 14H20; secondary 32Sxx Keywords: Conductor; Gauß–Manin connection; Isolated singularity; Milnor number; Nullstellensatz; Plane curve; Puiseux series 1. Introduction A nonconstant polynomial f ∈ C[X, Y ] defines a plane curve V(f) ={(x, y) ∈ C2|f(x,y)= 0}.Iff is square-free there are only finitely many points P ∈ V(f)such that fX(P ) = fY (P ) = 0, where fX and fY are the partial derivatives of f . This article is an account of the basic properties of such singularities of plane curves, in terms of elementary commutative algebra. It began as an attempt to understand the work of Morisita and others on analogies between algebraic number theory and knot theory [28]. Although we have not pursued such analogies here, the possibility of transposing arguments into number theory has lead to our emphasizing the commutative-algebraic point of view. The geometric and topological aspects of plane curves and their singularities are treated in much greater detail in the books [10,15,27]. ∗ Tel.: +61 2 9351 3049; fax: +61 2 9351 4534. E-mail address:
[email protected]. 0723-0869/$ - see front matter ᭧ 2005 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.