The abelianization of the real Cremona group (Q1700519)

The paper under review deals with the group \(\mathrm{Bir}_{\mathbb{R}}(\mathbb{P}^2) \) of birational selfmaps of \(\mathbb{P}^2\) defined over \(\mathbb{R}\). The main result is that, contrary to what happens over \(\mathbb{C}\), the group \(\mathrm{Bir}_{\mathbb{R}}(\mathbb{P}^2) \) is not generated by the automorphisms \(\mathrm{Aut}_{\mathbb{R}}(\mathbb{P}^2) \) and a countable set of elements. More precisely, there is an isomorphism \[ \mathrm{Bir}_{\mathbb{R}}(\mathbb{P}^2)/[\mathrm{Bir}_{\mathbb{R}}(\mathbb{P}^2),\mathrm{Bir}_{\mathbb{R}}(\mathbb{P}^2)]\cong\bigoplus_{(0,1]}\mathbb{Z}/2\mathbb{Z}. \] It was proved in [\textit{J. Blanc} and \textit{F. Mangolte}, Cheltsov, Ivan (ed.) et al., Automorphisms in birational and affine geometry, 35--58 (2014; Zbl 1327.14067)] that a set of generators for \(\mathrm{Bir}_{\mathbb{R}}(\mathbb{P}^2)\) is given by \(\mathrm{Aut}_{\mathbb{R}}(\mathbb{P}^2)\), \(\mathcal J_*\) and \(\mathcal J_0\) where \(\mathcal J_*\) is the set of elements in \(\mathrm{Bir}_{\mathbb{R}}(\mathbb{P}^2) \) preserving a certain pencil of lines and \(\mathcal J_0\) is the set of elements in \(\mathrm{Bir}_{\mathbb{R}}(\mathbb{P}^2) \) preserving a certain pencil of conics. The author determines the set of relations \(R\) such that \(\mathrm{Bir}_{\mathbb{R}}(\mathbb{P}^2)\) is isomorphic to the free group over the elements of \(\mathrm{Aut}_{\mathbb{R}}(\mathbb{P}^2)\), \(\mathcal J_0\) and \(\mathcal J_*\) modulo \(R\). She then defines a surjective morphism \(\varphi: \mathrm{Bir}_{\mathbb{R}}(\mathbb{P}^2) \to \bigoplus_{(0,1]}\mathbb{Z}/2\mathbb{Z}\) which sends \(\mathrm{Aut}_{\mathbb{R}}(\mathbb{P}^2)\) and \(\mathcal J_*\) to zero. The only generators of \(\mathcal J_0\) which are sent to nonzero elements are some specific transformations of degree 5. Finally, she proves that \(\ker\varphi=\langle\!\langle \mathrm{Aut}_{\mathbb{R}}(\mathbb{P}^2)\rangle\!\rangle=[\mathrm{Bir}_{\mathbb{R}}(\mathbb{P}^2),\mathrm{Bir}_{\mathbb{R}}(\mathbb{P}^2)]\) where \(\langle\!\langle H\rangle\!\rangle\) is the smallest normal subgroup containing \(H\) and \([H,H]\) is the commutator.