
INNER RATES OF FINITE MORPHISMS
YENNI CHERIK
Abstract. Let (X, 0) be a complex analytic surface germ embedded in (Cn,0) with an isolated singularity
and Φ = (g, f):(X, 0) −→ (C2,0) be a finite morphism. We define a family of analytic invariants of the
morphism Φ, called inner rates of Φ. By means of the inner rates we study the polar curve associated to the
morphism Φ when fixing the topological data of the curve (gf )−1(0) and the surface germ (X, 0), allowing
to address a problem called polar exploration. We also use the inner rates to study the geometry of the
Milnor fibers of a non constant holomorphic function f: (X, 0) −→ (C,0). The main result is a formula
which involves the inner rates and the polar curve alongside topological invariants of the surface germ (X, 0)
and the curve (gf )−1(0).
Introduction
Let (X, 0) be a complex analytic surface germ with an isolated singularity and Φ = (g, f) : (X, 0) −→
(C2,0) be a finite morphism. The polar curve of the morphism Φ is the curve ΠΦdefined as the topological
closure of the ramification locus of Φ. Polar curves play an important role in the study of the geometry and
the topology of germs of singular complex varieties, see, e.g.[Tei82,GBT99a,HP03,BNP14,BdSFP22a].
In this paper we introduce and study a family of analytic invariants of the morphism Φ that we call inner
rates of Φ, generalizing the notion of inner rates of a complex analytic surface germ (X, 0) first introduced by
Birbrair, Neumann and Pichon in [BNP14] as metric invariants, and later defined in [BdSFP22a] by Belotto,
Fantini and Pichon. Our main result (Theorem A) establishes a formula, the inner-rates formula, which
relates the inner rates with analytical data of the polar curve ΠΦand, in particular, provides a concrete
way to compute the inner rates. It has an equivalent version in terms of the laplacian of a certain graph
(Corollary 5.7) which is a broad generalization of the Laplacian formula [BdSFP22a, Theorem 4.3]. An
important motivation of our result concerns the study of Milnor fibers. Consider a non-constant holomorphic
function f: (X, 0) →(C,0) and a generic linear form (Definition 10.7)ℓ: (X, 0) →(C,0). We provide an
interpretation of the inner rates of the morphism Φ = (ℓ, f) : (X, 0) →(C2,0) in terms of metric properties
of the Milnor fiber, Theorem D.
As an application of our methods, we study the problem of polar exploration associated to Φ, following
[BdSFP22a,BdSFNP22]. Roughly speaking, it is the study of the relative position on (X, 0) of the two curves
ΠΦand (gf)−1(0) i.e., of the relative positions of their strict transform by a resolution of (X, 0). More precisely
it is the problem of determining the embedded topological type (Definition 9.1) of the union ΠΦ∪(gf)−1(0)
from that of the curve (gf)−1(0). This is a natural problem which has been studied by many authors such
as Merle, Garc´ıa Barroso, Delgado, Maugendre, Kuo, Parusi´nski, Michel, Belotto, Fantini, N´emethi, Pichon,
among others (see, e.g.,[Mer77,KP04,GB00,DM03,Mic08,MM20,DM21,BdSFNP22,BdSFP22b]). An
important contribution in the general case was made by Michel in [Mic08] via the Hironaka quotients of
the morphism Φ (Definition 7.1). New techniques and results involving inner rates were recently developed
in [BdSFNP22] in the case where Φ is a generic linear projection of (X, 0), and a complete answer to polar
exploration was given in [BdSFP22b] in the case where (X, 0) is a Lipschitz normally embedded surface germ.
In the present paper, we address the case of a general finite morphism Φ. We show the relation between the
inner rates and the Hironaka quotients (Theorem B(ii)), and we give an alternative proof of [Mic08, Theorem
4.9] based on our inner rates formula. Finally, we give a family of examples where the inner rates formula
provides tighter restrictions on the relative position of the polar curve than the ones obtained from previous
methods (Proposition C).
We now present our results in a sharp form. Let π: (Xπ, E)−→ (X, 0) be a good resolution of singularities
of (X, 0), that is, a proper bimeromorphic map which is an isomorphism on the complementary of a simple
normal crossing divisor π−1(0) = E, called the exceptional divisor. Let Evbe an irreducible component of
E. We call curvette of Eva smooth curve germ which intersects transversely Evat a smooth point of E.
Throughout the paper, we use the big-Theta asymptotic notation of Bachmann–Landau in the following
form: given two function germs h1, h2:[0,∞),0→[0,∞),0we say that h1is a big-Theta of h2and we
2010 Mathematics Subject Classification. Primary 32S25, 57M27 Secondary 14B05; 32S55.
Key words and phrases. Complex Surface Singularities, Resolution of singularities, Polar Curves, Milnor Fibers.
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arXiv:2210.02949v6 [math.AG] 11 Mar 2024