Height gap conjectures, \(D\)-finiteness, and a weak dynamical Mordell-Lang conjecture (Q2205563)

The paper under review studies the growth of the height of points in the orbit of a rational function, and shows that this height grows at least logarithmically, in a suitable sense. More precisely, let \(X\) be an algebraic variety, \(\Phi \colon X \dashrightarrow X\) be a rational map and \(f \colon X \dashrightarrow \mathbb{P}^1 \) be a non-constant rational map, all of which are defined over \(\overline{\mathbb{Q}}\). Let us denote by \(h \colon \mathbb{P}^1(\overline{\mathbb{Q}}) \to \mathbb{R}\) the absolute logarithmic Weil height, by \(\Phi^n \colon X \dashrightarrow X\) the \(n\)-th iterate of \(\Phi\) and by \(\mathcal{O}_\Phi(x) := \{ \Phi^n(x) \}_{n \in \mathbb{N}} \subseteq X(\overline{\mathbb{Q}})\) the forward orbit of any given point \(x \in X(\overline{\mathbb{Q}})\). Then Theorem 1.4 of the paper under review shows that, for every point \(x \in X(\overline{\mathbb{Q}})\) such that \(f(\Phi^n(x))\) is well defined for every \(n \in \mathbb{N}\), either the function \(f\) is constant on some irreducible component of the Zariski closure of \(\mathcal{O}_\Phi(x)\) which is periodic under the action of \(\Phi\), or there exists \(\varepsilon > 0\) (depending on \(X,\Phi,f\) and \(x\)) such that for every subset \(T \subseteq \mathbb{N}\) of positive upper natural density (i.e., such that \(\limsup_{m \to +\infty} m^{-1} \cdot \lvert T \cap \{1,\dots,m\} \rvert > 0\)) one has that \[ \limsup_{n \in T} \left( \frac{h(f(\Phi^n(x)))}{\log(n)} \right) > \varepsilon \] which implies also that there exists a set \(S \subseteq \mathbb{N}\) of upper natural density zero and a real number \(C \in \mathbb{R}_{> 0}\) such that \(h(f(\Phi^n(x))) > C \log(n)\) for every \(n \in \mathbb{N} \setminus S\), as shown in Theorem 1.5 of the paper under review. These results answer positively some questions raised by the first and the last author of the paper under review, together with \textit{D. Ghioca}, in the article [``Dynamical uniform bounds for fibers and a gap conjecture'', IMRN (to appear), \url{doi:10.1093/imrn/rnz257}]). The aforementioned results are then applied to the study of the height of the coefficients of differentiably finite power series (see [\textit{R. P. Stanley}, Eur. J. Comb. 1, 175--188 (1980; Zbl 0445.05012)]), and to the dynamical Mordell-Lang conjecture (see [\textit{J. P. Bell} et al., The dynamical Mordell-Lang conjecture. Providence, RI: American Mathematical Society (AMS) (2016; Zbl 1362.11001)] for a survey). This is done respectively in Theorem 1.9 and Theorem 1.10 of the paper under review. To conclude, the reviewer thinks that the results exposed in the paper under review are of great significance, and shade some light on the growth of heights both of the points in the orbit of a rational map, and of coefficients of differentiably finite power series. The link of these problems with the dynamical version of the Mordell-Lang conjecture is also an interesting source of new developements.