Holomorphic injectivity and the Hopf map. (Q1774018)

The authors obtain sharp results concerning the injectivity of a local biholomorphism \(X\to\mathbb{C}^n\), where \(X\) is a connected complex manifold of dimension \(n\geq 2\). Let \(q\in F(X)\) and suppose that \(F^{-1}(l)\) is conformal to a rigid domain \(D_l\subset\mathbb{C}\mathbb{P}^1\) for every complex line passing through \(q\). Then \(q\) is assumed exactly once by \(F\). By a rigid domain \(U\) in \(\mathbb{C} \mathbb{P}^1\) the authors mean that \(i:U\hookrightarrow\mathbb{C}\mathbb{P}^1\) is such that any holomorphic embedding \(f:U\hookrightarrow\mathbb{C}\mathbb{P}^1\) differs from \(i\) by an automorphism \(M\) of \(\mathbb{C}\mathbb{P}^1\) (i.e. \(f=M \circ i)\). The proof is by contradiction: if \(F^{-1}(g)\) contains two points, one can construct a continuous section to the natural map \(\pi:\mathbb{R}\mathbb{P}^{2n-1}\to\mathbb{C}\mathbb{P}^{n-1}\) associated to the Hopf map, and that is impossible, by cohomological reasons. The continuity of the section is a delicate question proven in \S 3 and follows from the Bieberbach-Gronwall estimates for univalent functions on the unit disc. The authors first prove the case \(F:\mathbb{C}^n\to\mathbb{C}^n\), \(n\geq 2\), in which the main idea of the proof is illustrated. The general case is proven in a similar way but using tangent vectors to rational curves to produce a section to the map \(\pi\). The use of the rigidity of \(F^{-1} (q)\) is essential both in the construction of the section, and for the fact that the result is not true if the rigidity is not assumed (example 2.7). As corollaries of the main result, we have I) that if \(F:X\to\mathbb{A}^n_{\mathbb{C}}\) is an etale morphism of schemes \((n\geq 2)\), then we have the equivalence of: 1) \(F\) is injective, 2) For each line \(l \subset \mathbb{C}^n\) meeting \(F(X)\), \(F^{-1} (l)\) is connected and rational. II) If \(F:Z\to\mathbb{P}_{\mathbb{C}}^n\) is a generically finite morphism of schemes \((n \geq 2)\), the fact that \(F\) is birational is equivalent to: there is an open set \(U\subset\mathbb{P}^n\) such that for every line \(l\subset\mathbb{P}^n_\mathbb{C} f^{-1} (l \cap U)\) is either empty or irreducible and rational.