In mathematics, a cusp, sometimes called spinode in old texts, is a point on a curve where a moving point must reverse direction. A typical example is given in the figure. A cusp is thus a type of singular point of a curve. For a plane curve defined by an analytic, parametric equation a cusp is a point where both derivatives of and are zero, and the directional derivative, in the direction of the tangent, changes sign. Cusps are local singularities in the sense that they involve only one value of the parameter, in contrast to self-intersection points that involve more than one value. In some contexts, the condition on the directional derivative may be omitted, although, in this case, the singularity may look like a regular point. For a curve defined by an implicit equation which is smooth, cusps are points where the terms of lowest degree of the Taylor expansion of are a power of a linear polynomial; however, not all singular points that have this property are cusps. The theory ofPuiseux series implies that, if is an analytic function, a linear change of coordinates allows the curve to be parametrized, in a neighborhood of the cusp, as where is a real number, is a positive even integer, and is a power series of order larger than. The number is sometimes called the order or the multiplicity of the cusp, and is equal to the degree of the nonzero part of lowest degree of. These definitions have been generalized to curves defined by differentiable functions by René Thom and Vladimir Arnold, in the following way. A curve has a cusp at a point if there is a diffeomorphism of a neighborhood of the point in the ambient space, which maps the curve onto one of the above-defined cusps. In some contexts, and in the remainder of this article, the definition of a cusp is restricted to the case of cusps of order two—that is, the case where. A plane curve cusp may be put in the following form by a diffeomorphism of the plane:, where is a positive integer.
Consider a smooth real-valued function of two variables, say f where x and y are real numbers. So f is a function from the plane to the line. The space of all such smooth functions is acted upon by the group of diffeomorphisms of the plane and the diffeomorphisms of the line, i.e. diffeomorphic changes of coordinate in both the source and the target. This action splits the whole function space up into equivalence classes, i.e. orbits of the group action. One such family of equivalence classes is denoted by Ak±, where k is a non-negative integer. This notation was introduced by V. I. Arnold. A function f is said to be of type Ak± if it lies in the orbit of x2 ± yk+1, i.e. there exists a diffeomorphic change of coordinate in source and target which takes f into one of these forms. These simple forms x2 ± yk+1 are said to give normal forms for the type Ak±-singularities. Notice that the A2n+ are the same as the A2n− since the diffeomorphic change of coordinate → in the source takes x2 + y2n+1 to x2 − y2n+1. So we can drop the ± from A2n± notation. The cusps are then given by the zero-level-sets of the representatives of the A2n equivalence classes, where n ≥ 1 is an integer.
Examples
An ordinary cusp is given by x2 − y3 = 0, i.e. the zero-level-set of a type A2-singularity. Let f be a smooth function of x and y and assume, for simplicity, that f = 0. Then a type A2-singularity of f at can be characterised by:
Having a degenerate quadratic part, i.e. the quadratic terms in the Taylor series of f form a perfect square, say L2, where L is linear in x and y, and
L does not divide the cubic terms in the Taylor series of f.
A rhamphoid cusp denoted originally a cusp such that both branches are on the same side of the tangent, such as for the curve of equation As such a singularity is in the same differential class as the cusp of equation which is a singularity of type A4, the term has been extended to all such singularities. These cusps are non-generic as caustics and wavefronts. The rhamphoid cusp and the ordinary cusp are non-diffeomorphic.
For a type A4-singularity we need f to have a degenerate quadratic part, that Ldoes divide the cubic terms, another divisibility condition, and a final non-divisibility condition. To see where these extra divisibility conditions come from, assume that f has a degenerate quadratic part L2 and that L divides the cubic terms. It follows that the third order taylor series of f is given by L2 ± LQ where Q is quadratic in x and y. We can complete the square to show that L2 ± LQ = 2 – ¼Q4. We can now make a diffeomorphic change of variable so that 2 − ¼Q4 → x12 + P1 where P1 is quartic in x1 and y1. The divisibility condition for type A≥4 is that x1 divides P1. If x1 does not divide P1 then we have type exactly A3. If x1 divides P1 we complete the square on x12 + P1 and change coordinates so that we have x22 + P2 where P2 is quintic in x2 and y2. If x2 does not divide P2 then we have exactly type A4, i.e. the zero-level-set will be a rhamphoid cusp.
Applications
Cusps appear naturally when projecting into a plane a smooth curve in the three dimensionalEuclidean space. In general, such a projection is a curve whose singularities are self-crossing points and ordinary cusps. Self-crossing points appear when two different points of the curves have the same projection. Ordinary cusps appear when the tangent to the curve is parallel to the direction of projection. More complicated singularities occur when several phenomena occurs simultaneously. For example, rhamphoid cusps occur for inflection points for which the tangent is parallel to the direction of projection. In many cases, and typically in computer vision and computer graphics, the curve that is projected is the curve of the critical points of the restriction to a spatial object of the projection. A cusp appears thus as a singularity of the contour of the image of the object or of its shadow. Caustics and wave fronts are other examples of curves having cusps that are visible in the real world.
