On plane Cremona transformations of fixed degree (Q2347942)

Given three homogeneous polynomial \(f_i\) of the same degree in three variables, one encodes a birational selfmap \(\gamma\) of \(\mathbb{P}^2\): \(\gamma([x:y:z]) = [f_1:f_2:f_3]\). Conversely, any element of \(\mathrm{Bir}(\mathbb P^2)\) has this form, but the \(f_i\) are uniquely determined only up to a common factor, which might be non-constant. From this remark it is natural to introduce the following two quasi-projective varieties. First, \(\mathrm{Bir}_d\) is the variety of triplets \([f_1:f_2:f_3]\) up to a multiplicative constant, where the \(f_i\) have degree \(d\) and define a birational map. Second, \(\mathrm{Bir}^0_d\) is the subset of \(\mathrm{Bir}_d\) corresponding to triplets without non-constant common factor. The paper under review studies basic properties of these quasi-projective varieties: dimension, connected components, connectedness. The study is in terms of the base locus of a birational map, that is, a sequence of (possibly infinitely near) points, together with multiplicities, which the author call the \(H\)-type of the transformation (\(H\) is for homaloidal). The main result is that \(\mathrm{Bir}^0_d\) has dimension \(4d + 6\), admits one connected (rational) component for each admissible \(H\)-type, its top-dimensional component is the one containing the Jonquières transformations, and \(\mathrm{Bir}^0_d\) is connected at least when \(d \leq 6\). The technical tool used in the proof is mainly the Hilbert scheme parametrizing zero-dimensional subschemes in \(\mathbb P^2\) of a given length \(r\). The proof of the connectedness when \(4 \leq d \leq 6\) relies on a careful analysis of some particular examples, using the software Maple. The authors also establish the connectedness of the bigger variety \(\mathrm{Bir}_d\) for any \(d\).