Notes on Projective, Contact, and Null Curves

Abstract

These are notes on some algebraic geometry of complex projective curves, together with an application to studying the contact curves in CP^3 and the null curves in the complex quadric Q^3 in CP^4, related by the well-known Klein correspondence. Most of this note consists of recounting the classical background. The main application is the explicit classification of rational null curves of low degree in Q^3. I have recently received a number of requests for these notes, so I am posting them to make them generally available.