Special Fibres and Critical Locus for a Pencil of Plane Curve Singularities

We will analyze the relationships between the special fibres of a pencil of plane curve singularities and the Jacobian curve J of (defined by the zero locus of the Jacobian determinant for any fixed basis ). From the results, we find decompositions of J (and of any special fibre of the pencil) in terms of the minimal resolution of . Using these decompositions and the topological type of any generic pair of curves of , we obtain some topological information about J. More precise decompositions for J can be deduced from the minimal embedded resolution of any pair of fibres (not necessarily generic) or from the minimal embedded resolution of all the special fibres.