Gert-Martin Greuel, Christop Lossen, Eugenii Shustin

• Let P2r be the projective plane blown up at r generic points. Denote by E0; E1; : : : ; Er the strict transform of a generic straight line on P2 and the exceptional divisors of the blown-up points on P2r respectively. We consider the variety Virr of all irreducible curves C with k nodes as the only singularities and give asymptotically nearly optimal sufficient conditions for its smoothness, irreducibility and non-emptiness. Moreover, we extend our conditions for the smoothness and the irreducibility on families of reducible curves. For r ^ 9 we give the complete answer concerning the existence of nodal curves in Virr.