Bifurcations of the conjugate locus

Abstract: The conjugate locus of a point $p$ in a surface $\mathcal{S}$ will have a certain number of cusps. As the point $p$ is moved in the surface the conjugate locus may spontaneously gain or lose cusps. In this paper we explain this `bifurcation' in terms of the vanishing of higher derivatives of the exponential map; we derive simple equations for these higher derivatives in terms of scalar invariants; we classify the bifurcations of cusps in terms of the local structure of the conjugate locus; and we describe an intuitive picture of the bifurcation as the intersection between certain contours in the tangent plane.