Singularities of secant maps of immersed surfaces

The secant map of an immersion sends a pair of points to the direction of the line joining the images of the points under the immersion. The germ of the secant map of a generic codimension-c immersion $X\!\!:{\mathbb R}^n \to {\mathbb R}^{n+c}The secant map of an immersion sends a pair of points to the direction of the line joining the images of the points under the immersion. The germ of the secant map of a generic codimension-c immersion X:\mathbb Rⁿ ? \mathbb R^n+cX\!\!:{\mathbb R}^n \to {\mathbb R}^{n+c} at the diagonal in the source is a \mathbb Z₂{\mathbb Z}_2 stable map-germ \mathbb R²ⁿ ? \mathbb R^n+c-1{\mathbb R}^{2n} \to {\mathbb R}^{n+c-1} in the following cases: (i) c≥ 2 and (2n,n + c − 1) is a pair of dimensions for which the \mathbb Z₂{\mathbb Z}_2 stable germs of rank at least n are dense, and (ii) for generically immersed surfaces (i.e., n = 2 and any c≥ 1). In the latter surface case the A^{\mathbb Z₂}{\mathcal A}^{{\mathbb Z}_2}-classification of germs of secant maps at the diagonal is described and it is related to the A{\mathcal A}-classification of certain singular projections of the surfaces.