Cuspidal curves and Heegaard Floer homology

Abstract

We give bounds on the gap functions of the singularities of a cuspidal plane curve of arbitrary genus, generalising recent work of Borodzik and Livingston. We apply these inequalities to unicuspidal curves whose singularity has one Puiseux pair: we prove two identities tying the parameters of the singularity, the genus and the degree of the curve; we improve on some degree-multiplicity asymptotic inequalities; finally, we prove some finiteness results, we construct infinite families of examples, and, in some cases, we give an almost complete classification.