Dual Curve - Properties of Dual Curve

Properties of Dual Curve

Properties of the original curve correspond to dual properties on the dual curve. In the image at right, the red curve has three singularities – a node in the center, and two cusps at the lower right and lower left. The black curve has no singularities, but has four distinguished points: the two top-most points have the same tangent line (a horizontal line), while there are two inflection points on the upper curve. The two top-most lines correspond to the node (double point), as they both have the same tangent line, hence map to the same point in the dual curve, while the inflection points correspond to the cusps, corresponding to the tangent lines first going one way, then the other (slope increasing, then decreasing).

By contrast, on a smooth, convex curve the angle of the tangent line changes monotonically, and the resulting dual curve is also smooth and convex.

Further, both curves have a reflectional symmetry, corresponding to the fact that symmetries of a projective space correspond to symmetries of the dual space, and that duality of curves is preserved by this, so dual curves have the same symmetric group. In this case both symmetries are realized as a left-right reflection; this is an artifact of how the space and the dual space have been identified – in general these are symmetries of different spaces.