Generic injectivity of Hessian maps of ternary forms

We prove that any planar projective curve of degree d 4 and with a smooth Hessian curve Hf is uniquely determined by Hf. Taking into account that the Hessian curve is the ramification divisor associated with the polar map, we prove the statement using a geometric description of the graph of such a map. It turns out that in degree d 4 two curves have the same smooth Hessian if and only if they have the same Jacobian ideal. The latter curves have been classified by C. Mammana, and they all have a reducible, hence singular, Hessian curve. As a consequence, the Hessian map, associating with a proportionality class of a ternary form the class of its Hessian determinant, is injective on the open locus corresponding to curves with smooth Hessian curve. This confirms a conjecture posed by C. Ciliberto and G. Ottaviani.