A solution of Gromov's Vaserstein problem (Q2378317)

The authors announce the following result: If \(X\) is a finite dimensional Stein space and \(f:X \to SL_{m}(\mathbb{C})\) is a holomorphic mapping that is null-homotopic, there exists a natural number \(K\) and holomorphic mappings \(G_1,\dots,G_K :X \to\mathbb{C}^{m(m-1)/2}\) such that \(f\) is the product of upper and lower diagonal unipotent matrices. Thus, \[ f(x)= \left( \begin{matrix} 1&0\\ G_{1}(x)&1 \end{matrix} \right) \left( \begin{matrix} 1& G_{2}(x)\\ 0&1 \end{matrix} \right) \left( \begin{matrix} 1& G_{K}(x)\\ 0&1 \end{matrix} \right) . \] This result gives an affirmative answer to a question of Vaserstein (as stated by Gromov). The authors provide a sketch of the proof for the case of \(SL_{2} (\mathbb{C})\) based on the existence of stratified sprays and announce that the details of the general case (proven by induction on the size of the matrices) will appear elsewhere.