Transformation d'halphen

Abstract

We give a modern version of the following result of Halphen: “degrees and classes of successive evolutes of a plane algebraic curve form two arithmetic progressions of the same ratio after a sufficient number of iterations”. The iteration of this transform provides a desingularisationprocess (branch by branch) of plane curves, different to the Nash transform and the Noether process. To prove these two points,we introduce systematically Puiseux's exponents, semi-groups of exponents and use elimination and duality formulae.