Nodal curves and Riccati solutions of Painlev\'e equations

In this paper, we study Riccati solutions of Painlev\'e equations from a view point of geometry of Okamoto-Painlev\'e pairs $(S,Y)$. After establishing the correspondence between (rational) nodal curves on $S-Y$ and Riccati solutions, we give the complete classification of the configurations of nodal curves on $S-Y$ for each Okamoto-Painlev\'e pair $(S, Y)$. As an application of the classification, we prove the non-existence of Riccati solutions of Painlev\'e equations of types $P_{I}, P_{III}^{\tilde{D}_8}$ and $P_{III}^{\tilde{D}_7}$. We will also give a partial answer to the conjecture in (STT) and (T) that the dimension of the local cohomology $H^1_{Y_{red}}(S,\Theta_S(-\log Y_{red}))$ is one.