On the Artal-Carmona-Cogolludo construction

Abstract

We derive explicit defining equations for a number of irreducible maximizing plane sextics with double singular points only. For most real curves, we also compute the fundamental group of the complement; all groups found are abelian, which suffices to complete the computation of the groups of all non-maximizing irreducible sextics. As a by-product, examples of Zariski pairs in the strongest possible sense are constructed. © 2014 World Scientific Publishing Company.