15 votes
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Does a resolution of a rational singularity have rationally connected fibers?

No. For instance the cone over an Enriques surface (with respect to any projective embedding) has rational singularity, but Enriques surface is not rationally connected.
Sasha's user avatar
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14 votes
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The homology groups of the smooth locus of a singular variety

I am adding some additional details to the comment above, since somebody else asked me about this recently. Results about extensions of cohomology classes to all of $X$ from an open subset $U=X\...
14 votes
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Derived Category of the derived critical locus, is it the category of Matrix Factorizations?

These are indeed related. The first thing to know is that they both ``live'' (i.e., sheafify) over the critical locus (this is not saying much if you assume $W$ has isolated critical points, but ...
G. Stefanich's user avatar
13 votes

Is canonical model always with canonical singularity

I believe that $(Y,B)$ is always klt for some boundary $B$. In fact by Theorem 5.2 of https://projecteuclid.org/download/pdf_1/euclid.jdg/1090347529, after passing to a truncation of the ...
Hacon's user avatar
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13 votes

Link of a singularity

More generally, consider the singularity given by $$x_1^2+\cdots+x_{n+1}^2=0$$ in $\mathbf{C}^{n+1}$. (Your case is $n=2$ after a change of variables.) Identifying $\mathbf{C}^{n+1}=\mathbf{R}^{n+1}\...
ssx's user avatar
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13 votes
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Fixed point scheme of finite group Cohen-Macaulay?

Here is a simpler example than the one I left before, using the same strategy. Let $$X = \{ x_1 x_3 = x_1 x_4 = x_1 x_5 = x_2 x_4 = x_2 x_5 = x_3 x_5 = 0 \} \subset \mathbb{C}^5.$$ This is the reduced ...
David E Speyer's user avatar
13 votes

Are Du Val singularities smoothable?

Du Val singularities are hypersurface singularities, hence they can be smoothed --- just replace the defining equation $F(x,y,z) = 0$ by the equation $F(x,y,z) = \epsilon$.
Sasha's user avatar
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11 votes
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Canonical scheme structure on the singular locus of a variety

The answer is yes. Let $X$ be a scheme of finite type over the field $k$, of pure dimension $r$; then $S_X$ can be defined as the closed subscheme of $X$ defined by the $r$th Fitting ideal of the ...
Andrea's user avatar
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10 votes
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Cohomology of tangent sheaf of a singular hypersurface

Put $d:=\deg(X)$. From the exact sequence $$0\rightarrow \mathcal{O}_X(-d)\rightarrow \Omega ^1_{\mathbb{P}^n|X}\rightarrow \Omega ^1_X\rightarrow 0$$you get an exact sequence $\ 0\rightarrow T_X\...
abx's user avatar
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10 votes
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Normal form of functions $(x^2+y^2)^n+$ higher terms

The expression $(x^2+y^2)^2 + x^5 + y^5$ cannot be written in the form $(z^2+w^2)^2$ for any smooth functions $z$ and $w$ of $x$ and $y$. (Just look at the Taylor series expansion.) Similarly, $n>...
Robert Bryant's user avatar
9 votes
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A paradox on the deformation of singularities

I don't think it is true that $\mathcal X$ is $\mathbb Q$-Gorenstein. Suppose in fact that $\dim \mathcal X _t=2$ for all $t\in C$ and $\mathcal X \to Z$ is a flipping contraction with exceptional ...
Hacon's user avatar
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9 votes
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Cohomology of real analytic coherent sheaves

In a smooth case, the reference is Proposition 2.3 in Atiyah and Hirzebruch's Analytic cycles on complex manifolds. For a non-smooth case, I don't know the general reference, but Theoreme 3 in Henri ...
Grisha Papayanov's user avatar
9 votes

Link of a singularity

For singularities of the form $g(x,y)+z^n = 0$ there is a nice description: if you project onto the $xy$-plane (and you take a very small neighbourhood of the origin), you can view the link of the (...
Marco Golla's user avatar
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9 votes
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What is the ideal of hypersurfaces singular at a given irreducible variety?

If $X=\mathbb{V}(I)$ is given by the ideal $I$, then the $m$th symbolic power $I^{[m]}$ consists of all those functions vanishing to multiplicity $m$ at the generic point of $X$. Thus a hypersurface $\...
Tom Ducat's user avatar
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8 votes

Can you prove Givental's conjecture on wavefronts and the icosahedron?

In http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167278998900057 (Remarks on quasicrystallic symmetries) Arnold so describes the idea of Shcherbak's proof: Now the proof of this theorem ...
Zurab Silagadze's user avatar
8 votes

Can the constant rank theorem for smooth manifolds be generalized to nonconstant rank?

Your motivating question has a negative answer: Consider the inclusion $\iota:S^m\to\mathbb{R}^{m+1}$, which has rank at most $m$. If there were a smooth extension $f:D^{m+1}\to\mathbb{R}^{m+1}$ of ...
Robert Bryant's user avatar
8 votes
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Do the cohomology groups of the structure sheaf of a smooth resolution depend on the resolution?

Edit. This follows from the Elkik-Fujita Vanishing Theorem. There is a more general vanishing theorem due to Elkik and Fujita. One version of this theorem (where I read the theorem) is Theorem 1.3.1 ...
8 votes
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General conditions for normality of blow-up

Let $X=Spec(R)$. Blowing-up $Z=V(I)$ is the same as to look at $Proj$ of the graded ring $R[It]=\oplus_{j\geqslant 0} I^jt^j\subset R[t]$, the Rees ring associated to $I$. Assume $R$ is a domain, ...
amateur's user avatar
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8 votes
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Are Du Val singularities smoothable?

Du Val singularities are indeed smoothable and, in fact, more is true: they are of class $T$, namely, they are quotient singularities admitting a $1$-parameter $\mathbb{Q}$-Gorenstein smoothing. See ...
Francesco Polizzi's user avatar
8 votes
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Is there a, in depth, classification of branch points in complex analysis?

Yes, there is a classification. An isolated branch point can be algebraic or logarithmic. If the branch point is at 0, algebraic means that $f(z^n)$ has a pole or removable singularity at 0. It can ...
Alexandre Eremenko's user avatar
8 votes
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What does the Jacobian of a vector field at an equilibrium tell you about local behavior of integral curves when the Jacobian is not a stable?

The Jacobian alone doesn't have the information you need. For example, consider the two vector fields $$f(x, y) = (-x^2, -y)$$ and $$g(x, y) = (-x^3, -y)$$. They have an isolated equilibrium at the ...
Martin M. W.'s user avatar
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7 votes
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Complexifying a real-analytic singularity

As David Speyer has already suggested, we have $Q_f^\mathbb{C}\simeq Q_f\otimes\mathbb{C}$, so that answers the first question (and the second question). For the third question, consider $f = (x^2+y^...
Robert Bryant's user avatar
7 votes

When is a singular point of a variety ($\mathcal{C}^\infty$-) smooth?

As Francesco Polizzi said, the answer is in fact no. Here, a more general answer. Let $X\subset \mathbb{C}^n$ be a complex analytic set with $d=\dim X$ and $x\in X$ be a singular point, then: 1) ...
user73454's user avatar
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7 votes
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Asymptotic behavior of the ratio between the largest two singular values of product of i.i.d. random complex matrices

So this is correct. The theorem that you need is the multiplicative ergodic theorem. Expressing it in your language, it states that $\frac 1n\log s_i(A_n)\to\lambda_i$, where $s_i$ is the $i$th ...
Anthony Quas's user avatar
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7 votes

Link of a singularity

To add to the excellent answers already provided, here are some general facts in the case of rational surface singularities (1 and 2) and hypersurface singularities (3). Many interesting ...
Jonny Evans's user avatar
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7 votes
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Computing the invariants of ball quotient surfaces

I'm assuming that you know "where" in the commensurability class your lattice is. By this, I mean you perhaps have $\Gamma$ as a subgroup of some principal arithmetic lattice $\Lambda$ of ...
Toffee's user avatar
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7 votes
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Is there a "minimal" Whitney stratification of a complex hypersurface?

The answer is yes for any reduced equidimensional analytic space. This is the proposition 3.2 (and remark after the proof) page 479 of Variétés polaires II by Bernard Teissier.
Libli's user avatar
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7 votes
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How to solve the following ODE with a parameter?

This is essentially an elliptic second-order ODE in $(0,\infty)$: $$ (1 + y^2)^{r/2} u''(y) = (-\alpha) u(y) , $$ with boundary conditions $u'(0) = -1$ and $u(\infty) = 0$. This kind of problems are ...
Mateusz Kwaśnicki's user avatar
7 votes

Smooth complete intersections

If $X \subset \mathbb{P}^n$ is a non-degenerate, smooth complete intersection variety of dimension at least $3$, then the restriction map $$\operatorname{Pic}(\mathbb{P}^n) \to \operatorname{Pic}(X)$$ ...
Francesco Polizzi's user avatar

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