A combinatorial property of generic immersions of curves

Abstract

A divide is a relative generic immersion of a finite union of copies of the unit interval in the unit disk. A divide defines a classical link in the 3- sphere, which is a fibered link if the image of the immersion is connected. We prove in this paper, that the Lefschetz number of the monodromy is 0. This result was known for divides, which correspond to real morsifications of complexe plane curve singularities. The proof uses the space of gradient lines of a morse function.