Singular Points of Real Quintic Curves Via Computer Algebra

David A. Weinberg, Nicholas J. Willis

Published 2008-06-30Version 1

There are 42 types of real singular points for irreducible real quintic curves and 49 types of real singular points for reducible real quintic curves. The classification of real singular points for irreducible real quintic curves is originally due to Golubina and Tai. There are 28 types of singular points for irreducible complex quintic curves and 33 types of singular points for reducible complex quintic curves. We derive the complete classification with proof by using the computer algebra system Maple. We clarify that the classification is based on computing just enough of the Puiseux expansion to separate the branches. Thus, a major component of the proof consists of a sequence of large symbolic computations that can be done nicely using Maple.