Locally acyclic cluster algebras (Q1931841)

In 2001, in order to study total positivity in algebraic groups and canonical bases in quantum groups, \textit{S. Fomin} and \textit{A. Zelevinsky} introduced the class of cluster algebras [J. Am. Math. Soc. 15, No. 2, 497--529 (2002; Zbl 1021.16017)]. Since then, cluster algebras have been discovered in many contexts throughout mathematics. The defining feature of a cluster algebra is that the complete set of cluster variables can be recovered from distinguished \(n\)-element subsets of the cluster variables called \textit{clusters}. A cluster variable in a cluster can be \textit{mutated} to produce a new cluster variable. Iterating in all possible ways reconstructs the complete set of cluster variables. This paper only focus on \textit{skew-symmetric} cluster algebras of geometric type which can be encoded into an ice quiver; a quiver with some frozen vertices, but the results in this paper remain true for skew-symmetrizable cluster algebras with coefficients in a Laurent ring. One important classes of cluster algebras are acyclic cluster algebras which can come from a quiver with no directed cycle of unfrozen vertices. Despite the success of working with acyclic cluster algebras, there are still many examples of cluster algebras which are not acyclic but which enjoy many of the same properties. This paper seeks to generalize acyclic cluster algebras to capture more of these well-behaved algebras. To do this, the author considered localizations of cluster algebras where a finite set of cluster variables has been inverted and studied cluster algebras locally, by identifying a special class of localizations which are themselves cluster algebras. A ``locally acyclic cluster algebra'' is a cluster algebra which admits a finite cover by acyclic cluster algebras. In this paper, many important results about acyclic cluster algebras extend to local acyclic cluster algebras as well as results which are new even for acyclic cluster algebras (such as regularity when the exchange matrix has full rank). Several techniques are developed for determining whether a cluster algebra is locally acyclic. The author showed that cluster algebras of marked surfaces with at least two boundary marked points are locally acyclic but not acyclic.