Canonical Resolution of a Quasi-ordinary Surface Singularity

Abstract

We describe the embedded resolution of a quasi-ordinary surface singularity (V,p) which results from applying the canonical resolution of Bierstone-Milman to (V,p). We show that this process depends solely on the characteristic pairs of (V,p), as predicted by Lipman. We describe the process explicitly enough that a resolution graph for (V,p) could in principle be obtained by computer using only the characteristic pairs.