Astroidal geometry of hypocycloids and the Hessian topology of hyperbolic polynomials

Abstract

The Hessian topology has just begun to be developed (in connection with the study of parabolic curves on smooth surfaces in Euclidean or projective space), in contrast to the symplectic and contact topologies related to it. For instance, it is not known how many (compact) parabolic curves can belong to the graph of a polynomial of a given (even of the fourth) degree in two variables or to a smooth algebraic surface of a given degree. The astroid is a hypocycloid with four cusp points. A hyperbolic polynomial is a homogeneous polynomial whose second differential has the signature (+,–) at any non-zero point. Hyperbolic polynomials and functions are connected with Morse theory and Sturm theory and with hypocycloids via caustics (and wave fronts) of periodic functions. The astroid is the caustic of the cosine of a double angle. The caustic of any periodic function has at least four cusp points, and if there are four of them, as is the case for the astroid, then these points form a parallelogram.The theory developed in this paper, based on the study of envelopes and inequalities between derivatives of smooth functions, proves that hyperbolic polynomials of degree four form a connected set and those of degree six form a disconnected set. These topological generalizations of the Sturm and Hurwitz theorems about the zeros of Fourier series give algebraic-geometric results on caustics and wave fronts as well and also establish relationships between these results and the Morse theory of anti-Rolle functions (whose zeros alternate with those of their derivatives).