The behaviour of curvature functions at cusps and inflection points

Abstract

At a 3/2-cusp of a given plane curve $\gamma(t)$, both of the Euclidean curvature $\kappa_g$ and the affine curvature $\kappa_A$ diverge. In this paper, we show that each of $\sqrt{|s_g|}\kappa_g$ and $(s_A)^2 \kappa_A$ (called the Euclidean and affine normalized curvature, respectively) at a 3/2-cusp is a smooth function of the variable $t$, where $s_g$ (resp. $s_A$) is the Euclidean (resp. affine) arclength parameter of the curve corresponding to the 3/2-cusp $s_g=0$ (resp. $s_A=0$). Moreover, we give a characterization of the behaviour of the curvature functions $\kappa_g$ and $\kappa_A$ at 3/2-cusps. On the other hand, inflection points are also singular points of curves in affine geometry. We give a similar characterization of affine curvature functions near generic inflection points. As an application, new affine invariants of 3/2-cusps and generic inflection points are given.