The stable equivalence and cancellation problems (Q1881554)

The authors consider various questions related to the affine cancellation problem. Working over a field \(k\) of characteristic zero, they define two algebraic varieties \(V_1\) and \(V_2\) in \(k^n\) to be stably equivalent if there is an \(m\geq 0\) and an automorphism of \(k^{n+m}\) which transforms \(V_1\times k^m\) to \(V_2\times k^m\). The varieties are equivalent if we can take \(m=0\). Their first result is that, if two plane curves are stably equivalent, then they are equivalent (thm. 1.1). They next consider the stable coordinate conjecture and the cancellation conjecture. The former asserts that any hypersurface which is stably equivalent to a coordinate hypersurface is already a coordinate hypersurface. The latter asserts that if \(X\times k^1\cong k^{n+1}\) for a variety \(X\), then \(X\cong k^n\). In thm. 1.2, the authors show that the stable coordinate conjecture implies the cancellation conjecture, an implication which is certainly not obvious.