A general class of Danielewski algebras (Q2049376)

\textit{W. Danielewski} [``On a cancellation problem and automorphism groups of affine algebraic varieties'', Preprint] introduced a class of surfaces in \(\mathbb{A}^3_{\mathbb{C}}\), denoted by \(S_n\) (\(n \in \mathbb{N}\)), satisfying equations of the type \(q(z_1) - x^nz_2=0\) and having non-cancellative property, i.e., for \(m \ne n\) we have \(S_n \ncong S_m\) whereas \(S_n\) and \(S_m\) are stably isomorphic. This class of surfaces are known as Danielewski surfaces and they have been studied in detail by many authors. \textit{N. Gupta} and \textit{S. Sen} [J. Algebra 533, 25--43 (2019; Zbl 1437.14064)] introduced the concept of double Danielewski surfaces. For an arbitrary field \(k\), a double Danielewski surface \(S_{d,e}\) (\(d,e \in \mathbb{N}\)) is embedded in \(\mathbb{A}^4_k\) and is given by the following set of equations. \[ \begin{array}{ll} q_1(x,z_1)-x^{d}z_2 & = 0\\ q_2(x,z_1,z_2)-x^{e}z_3 & = 0 \end{array} \] The surfaces \(S_{d,e}\)s are stably isomorphic. However, they are non-cancellative, to be specific, one has \(S_{d,e} \ncong S_{d, e+1}\). Further, none of the double Danielewski surfaces is isomorphic to any Danielewski surface. In this article under review, the authors introduce, over a characteristic zero field \(k\), a general class of Danielewski-type surfaces in \(\mathbb{A}^{r+2}_k\) called Danielewski \(k\)-algebras which unifies the concept of Danielewski surfaces and double Danielewski surfaces. A Danielewski \(k\)-algebra is denoted by \(A_{c,q}\) where \(c = (c_1, c_2, \cdots, c_r)\) and \(q = (q_1, q_2, \cdots, q_r)\) satisfies certain properties, and is given by the following set of equations. \[ \begin{array}{ll} q_1(x, z_1) - c_1(x)z_2 & = 0\\ q_2(x,z_1,z_2) - c_2(x)z_3 & = 0\\ . & ~\\ . & ~\\ . & ~\\ q_r(x,z_1,\dots,z_r)-c_r(x)z_{r+1} & = 0 \end{array} \] The authors show that each Danielewski \(k\)-algebra \(A_{c,q}\) is endowed with a non-trivial essentially unique irreducible locally nilpotent derivation \(\xi_{c,q}\). They also study the ML invariant of these algebras, and conditions under which two such \(k\)-algebras are isomorphic.