Multiplicity of Boardman strata and deformations of map germs

AbstractWe define algebraically for each map germ f:Kn,0→Kp, 0 and for each Boardman symbol i=(i1,…,ik) a number ci(f) which is -invariant. If f is finitely determined, this number is the generalization of the Milnor number of f when p = 1, the number of cusps of f when n = p = 2, or the number of cross caps when n = 2, p = 3. We study some properties of this number and prove that, in some particular cases, this number can be interpreted geometrically as the number of Σi points that appear in a generic deformation of f. In the last part, we compute this number in the case that the map germ is a projection and give some applications to catastrophe map germs.