Sofic profile and computability of Cremona groups (Q2442195)

Let \(K\) be a field. If \(X\) is an irreducible algebraic variety of dimension \(d\geq 1\) we denote by \(\mathrm{Bir}_d(X)\) the group of birational maps \(X\dashrightarrow X\); when \(X\) is the affine space \(K^d\) that group is the so-called \(d\)-dimensional Cremona Group, denoted by \(\mathrm{Cr}_d(K)\) as well. If \(u,v\) are permutations in the symmetric group \(\mathrm{Sym}_n\) of \(n\) elements the \textit{normalized Hamming distance} \(d^n_{\mathrm{Ham}}(u,v)\) between them is the number of elements where \(u\) and \(v\) do not coincide divided by \(n\). The paper under review contains two main results. On the one hand, its author proves that \(\mathrm{Cr}_d(K)\), and more generally \(\mathrm{Bir}_d(X)\) for an absolutely irreducible variety \(X\), is \textit{sofic} in the following sense: for every finite subset \(E\) in such a group and every \(\epsilon>0\), there exist a positive integer \(n\) and a set-theoretical map \(\phi:E\to \mathrm{Sym}_n\), with \(\phi(1)=1\), such that if \(f,g,h\in E\), then \(f=gh\) implies \(d^n_{\mathrm{Ham}}(\phi(g)\phi(h),\phi(f))\leq \epsilon\), and \(g\neq h\) implies \(d^n_{\mathrm{Ham}}(\phi(g),\phi(h))\geq 1-\epsilon\). On the other hand, he proves that every finitely generated subgroup \(G\) of \(\mathrm{Cr}_d(K)\) has a \textit{solvable word problem}. More precisely, if \(p:\mathbb F\to G\) is a surjective homomorphism, where \(\mathbb F\) is a free group of finite rank, then the kernel \(\ker p\) of \(p\) is \textit{recursive} in \(\mathbb F\), i.e., there is a algorithm to determine in a finite time whether or not a given element in \(\mathbb F\) belongs to \(\ker p\). This provides examples of finitely generated groups with no embeddings into \(\mathrm{Cr}_d(K)\), answering to a question formulated by \textit{S. Cantat} [Ann. Math. (2) 174, No. 1, 299--340 (2011; Zbl 1233.14011)].