Let $ {\mathcal C} $ be an algebraic curve and c be an analytically irreducible singular point of ${\mathcal C}$. The set ${\mathscr {L}_{\infty }}({\mathcal C})^c$ of arcs with origin c is an irreducible closed subset of the space of arcs on ${\mathcal C}$. We obtain a presentation of the formal neighborhood of the generic point of this set which can be interpreted in terms of deformations of the generic arc defined by this point. This allows us to deduce a strong connection between the aforementioned formal neighborhood and the formal neighborhood in the arc space of any primitive parametrization of the singularity c. This may be interpreted as the fact that analytically along ${\mathscr {L}_{\infty }}({\mathcal C})^c$ the arc space is a product of a finite dimensional singularity and an infinite dimensional affine space.

Let $k$ be field of characteristic zero. Let $f\in k[X,Y]$ be a nonconstant polynomial. We prove that the space of differential (formal) deformations of any formal general solution of the associated ordinary differential equation $f(y^{\prime },y)=0$ is isomorphic to the formal disc $\text{Spf}(k[[Z]])$ .

In this note, we prove that the Drinfeld–Grinberg–Kazhdan theorem on the structure of formal neighborhoods of arc schemes at a nonsingular arc does not extend to the case of singular arcs.

We study the asymptotical behaviour of the moduli space of morphisms of given anticanonical degree from a rational curve to a split toric variety, when the degree goes to infinity. We obtain in this case a geometric analogue of Manin’s conjecture about rational points of bounded height on varieties defined over a global field. The study is led through a generating series whose coefficients lie in a Grothendieck ring of motives, the motivic height zeta function. In order to establish convergence properties of this function, we use a notion of motivic Euler product. It relies on a construction of Denef and Loeser which associates a virtual motive to a first order logic ring formula.