On Umbilic Points on Newly Born Surfaces

Abstract

The simplest way to have birth of surfaces is through transitions in the fibres of a function f with a Morse singularity of index 0 or 3. It is natural to seek to understand the geometry of newly born surfaces. We consider here the question of finding how many umbilics are on a newly born surface. We show that newly born surfaces in the Euclidean 3-space have exactly 4 umbilic points all of type lemon, provided that the Hessian of f at the singular point has pairwise distinct eigenvalues. This is true in both cases when f is an analytic or a smooth germ. When only two of such eigenvalues are equal, the number of umbilic points is either 2, 4, 6 or 8 when f is an analytic or a generic smooth germ. The same results holds for newly born surfaces in the Minkowski 3-space. In that case when the two eigenvalues associated to the two spacelike eigenvectors are distinct we get exactly 4 umbilic points all of type lemon. If they are equal, the number of umbilic points is either 2, 4, 6 or 8.