Let M ⊂ R n+2 be a two-dimensional complete intersection. We show how to check whether a mapping f : M −→ R 2 is 1-generic with only folds and cusps as singularities. In this case we give an effective method to count the number of positive and negative cusps of a polynomial f , using the signatures of some quadratic forms.
PreliminariesLet M, N be smooth manifolds such that m = dim M and n = dim N. Take p ∈ M. For smooth mappings f, g : M −→ N such that f (p) = g(p) = q, we say that f has first order contact with g at p if Df (p) = Dg(p), as mappingsq) denotes a set of equivalence classes of mappings f : M −→ N, where f (p) = q, having the same first order contact at p. Let J 1 (M, N) = (p,q)∈M ×N J 1 (M, N) (p,q)denote the 1-jet bundle of smooth mappings from M to N.With any smooth f : M −→ N we can associate a canonical mapping j 1 f : M −→ J 1 (M, N). Take σ ∈ J 1 (M, N), represented by f . Then by corank σ we denote the corank Df (p). Put S r = {σ ∈ J 1 (M, N) | corank σ = r}. According to [4, II, Theorem 5.4], S r is a submanifold of J 1 (M, N), with codim S r = r(|m − n| + r). Put S r (f ) = {x ∈ M | corank Df (p) = r} = (j 1 f ) −1 (S r ).Definition 2.1. We say that f : M −→ N is 1-generic if j 1 f ⋔ S r , for all r.According to [4, II, Theorem 4.4], if j 1 f ⋔ S r then either S r (f ) = ∅ or S r (f ) is a submanifold of M, with codim S r (f ) = codim S r .In the remaining we will need the following useful fact.