Holomorphic automorphisms of Danielewski surfaces. II: Structure of the overshear group (Q490782)

Given a non-constant polynomial \(p(z) \in \mathbb C[z]\) with only simple zeros, the hypersurface \(D_p = \{x y - p(z) = 0\} \subset \mathbb C^3\) is called the \textit{Danielewski surface determined by \(p\)}. It is known that the automorphism group of \(D_p\) is extremely large and shares many of the properties of the automorphism group of \(\mathbb C^2\), despite the fact that \(D_p\) has nontrivial topology in general. Indeed, in perfect analogy with the density property of the overshear group \(\text{OS}(\mathbb C^2)\) of \(\mathbb C^2\), in [Proc. Am. Math. Soc. 139, No. 11, 3915--3927 (2011; Zbl 1241.32022)], the second and third author proved that the group generated by the maps \[ \text{O}_{f,g}(x,y,z) = \bigg(x, y + \frac{p(e^{x f(x)} z + x g(x)) - p(z)}{x}, e^{x f(x)} z + x g(x)\bigg)\;\eqno(*) \] \[ \text{O}'_{f,g}(x,y,z) = \bigg( x + \frac{p(e^{y f(y)} z + y g(y)) - p(z)}{y}, y, e^{y f(y)} z + y g(y)\bigg)\;\eqno(**) \] with \(f\), \(g\) holomorphic, is dense in the identity components of \(\text{Aut}(D_p)\). This group is called \textit{overshear group of \(D_p\)} and is denoted by \(\text{OS}(D_p)\). The main theorem of this paper is the following: If \(\text{deg}(p) \geq 4\), the group \(\text{OS}(D_p)\) is a free product of the group \(\text{O}_1\) generated by the maps \((*)\), and the group \(\text{O}_2\) generated by the maps \((**)\). The proof is crucially based on some new results on Nevanlinna characteristic functions on Danielewski surfaces. This result can be considered as an analogue of the structure theorem for the overshear group \(\text{OS}(\mathbb C^2)\) of \(\mathbb C^2\), given by \textit{P. Ahern} and \textit{W. Rudin} in [Indiana Univ. Math. J. 44, No. 1, 287--303 (1995; Zbl 0838.32010)]. However, it should be noticed that, in contrast with the result of this paper, Ahern and Rudin's Theorem presents \(\text{OS}(\mathbb C^2)\) as an amalgamated product of two groups, which is not free.