Duality of planar and spacial curves: new insight

Abstract

We study the geometry of equiclassical strata of the discriminant in the space of plane curves of a given degree, which are families of curves of given degree, genus and class (degree of the dual curve). Our main observation is that the use of duality transformation leads to a series of new sufficient conditions for a regular behavior of the equiclassical stratification. We also discuss duality of curves in higher-dimensional projective spaces and in Grassmannians with focus on similar questions of the regularity of equiclassical families of spacial curves.