A nonalgebraic patchwork

Itenberg and Shustin’s pseudoholomorphic curve patchworking is in principle more flexible than Viro’s original algebraic one. It was natural to wonder if the former method allows one to construct nonalgebraic objects. In this paper we construct the first examples of patchworked real pseudoholomorphic curves in Σ _n whose position with respect to the pencil of lines cannot be realized by any real algebraic curve of the same bidegree. Both authors are very grateful to the Max Planck Institute für Mathematik in Bonn for its financial support and excellent working conditions.