Separating invariants for arbitrary linear actions of the additive group (Q2436636)

Let \(\Bbbk\) be a field of characteristic zero and \(\mathbb{G}_a\) its additive group. Consider a finite-dimensional representation \(V\) of \(\mathbb{G}_a\) and denote by \(\Bbbk[V]\) the algebra of polynomial function on \(V\) and by \(\Bbbk[V]^{\mathbb{G}_a}\) its subalgebra of \textit{invariant elements}. Following Derksen and Kemper, a \textit{separating set} for the ring of the invariants \(\Bbbk[V]^{\mathbb{G}_a}\) is a subset \(S \subset \Bbbk[V]^{\mathbb{G}_a}\) with the following property: given \(v, w \in V\), if there exists an invariant \(f\) such that \(f(v)\neq f(w)\) (separates the points), then there also exists \(s \in S\) which separates \(v\) and \(w\). The main result of the paper says: For a finite-dimensional representation \(V\) (not necessarily indecomposable) of \(\mathbb{G}_a\) with \(\dim_{\mathbb k}(V)=n\). There exists a separating set \(S \subset \Bbbk[V]^{\mathbb{G}_a}\) with the following three properties: (1) \(S\) consists of invariants of degree at most \(2n-1\). (2) the size of \(S\) is quadratic in \(n\). (3) \(S\) consists of invariants which involve variables coming from at most \(2\) indecomposable summands.