Irreducible Jacobian derivations in positive characteristic (Q2248123)

The paper under review is devoted to the characterization of Jacobian derivations of polynomial algebras over integral domains of positive characteristic. Let \(A = K[x_{1},\dots, x_{n}]\) be a polynomial algebra in \(n\) variables over an integral domain \(K\) and let \(F = \{f_{1},\dots, f_{n-1}\}\subseteq A\). Then one can consider a \(K\)-derivation \(d_{F}:A\rightarrow A\) such that \(d_{F}(g) = \mathrm{Jac}(f_{1},\dots, f_{n-1}, g)\) for any \(g\in A\), where \(\mathrm{jac}\) denotes the usual Jacobian determinant with respect to \(x_{1},\dots, x_{n}\). A \(K\)-derivation of \(A\) of the form \(d_{F}\) (for some \(F =\{f_{1},\dots, f_{n-1}\}\subseteq A\)) is called a \textit{Jacobian derivation}. In what follows, for any \(f_{1},\dots, f_{m}\in A\) (\(m\geq 1\)) and \(j_{1},\dots, j_{m}\in\{1,\dots, n\}\), \(\mathrm{Jac}^{f_{1},\dots, f_{m}}_{j_{1},\dots, j_{m}}\) denotes the Jacobian determinant of \(f_{1},\dots, f_{m}\) with respect to \(x_{j_{1}},\dots, x_{j_{m}}\) and \[ \mathrm{dgcd}(f_{1},\dots, f_{m}) = \gcd\left(\mathrm{Jac}^{f_{1},\dots, f_{m}}_{j_{1},\dots,j_{m}}\,:\,j_{1},\dots, j_{m}\in\{1,\dots, n\}\right). \] If \(\mathrm{Char} K = p > 0\) and \(B\) is a subring of \(A\) containing \(A^{p} = \{a^{p}\,:\,a\in A\}\), then a set \(\{z_{1},\dots, z_{m}\}\subseteq A\) is called a \(p\)-basis of \(A\) over \(B\) if the elements \(z_{1}^{i_{1}}\dots z_{m}^{i_{m}}\) (\(1\leq i_{1},\dots, i_{m} < p\)) form a basis of \(A\) as a \(B\)-module. The main result of the paper is the following description of Jacobian derivations of polynomial algebras of positive characteristic (Theorem 3.4): Let \(K\) be a UFD of characteristic \(p > 0\). Let \(d\) be a nonzero \(K\)-derivation of the polynomial \(K\)-algebra \(A = K[x_{1},\dots, x_{n}]\) such that \(d(x_{1}),\dots, d(x_{n})\) are (in common) coprime, and let \(A^{d}\) be the ring of constants of \(A\) with respect to \(d\). Then the following conditions are equivalent: (a) \(A^{d}\) has a \(p\)-basis over \(K[x_{1}^{p},\dots, x_{n}^{p}]\) consisting of \(n-1\) elements. (b) \(d\) is a Jacobian derivation. (c) There exist \(f_{1},\dots, f_{n-1}\in A^{d}\) such that the element \(\mathrm{dgcd}(f_{1},\dots, f_{n-1})\) is invertible. In the last part of the paper this result is applied to polynomial algebras of two variables. In this case, the author obtains the following characterization of Jacobian derivations of \(K[x, y]\) (Theorem 4.5): Let \(K\) be a UFD, \(\mathrm{Char} K = p >0\), and let \(d\) be a nonzero derivation of the polynomial algebra \(K[x, y]\) such that \(d(x)\) and \(d(y)\) are coprime. Then the following conditions are equivalent: (a) \(K[x, y]^{d} = K[x^{p}, y^{p}, f]\) for some polynomial \(f\in K[x, y]\setminus K[x^{p}, y^{p}]\). (b) \(d\) is a Jacobian derivation. (c) \(K[x, y]^{d}\neq K[x^{p}, y^{p}]\) and \(d^{\ast} = 0\) where \(d^{\ast} = {\frac{\partial d(x_{1})}{\partial x_{1}}}+ \dots + {\frac{\partial d(x_{n})}{\partial x_{n}}}\) is the divergence of \(d\). (d) \(d(f) = 0\) and \(d(\bar{f}) = 0\) for some polynomial \(f\in K[x, y]\setminus K[x^{p}, y^{p}]\), where \(\bar{f} = \gcd(\partial f/\partial x, \partial f/\partial y)\).