On solvable subgroups of the Cremona group (Q281491)

The subgroups of the Cremona group \(\text{Bir}(\mathbb P^2_{\mathbb C})\) with special properties have long been the object of study. In the case of finite subgroups, the story has classical origins, beginning with \textit{E. Bertini} [Annali di Mat. (2) 8, 254--287 (1877; JFM 09.0578.02)] and culminating in the work of \textit{I. V. Dolgachev} and \textit{V. A. Iskovskikh} [Prog. Math. 269, 443--548 (2009; Zbl 1219.14015)]. There has also been considerable work done on, for example, finitely generated [\textit{S. Cantat}, Ann. Math. (2) 174, No. 1, 299--340 (2011; Zbl 1233.14011)] and nilpotent [\textit{J. Déserti}, Bull. Braz. Math. Soc. (N.S.) 38, No. 3, 377--388 (2007; Zbl 1222.14028)] subgroups. The object of the present paper is to study the solvable subgroups of the Cremona group. The main result of the paper is that if \(G\) is an infinite, solvable, and non-virtually abelian subgroup of \(\text{Bir}(\mathbb P^2_{\mathbb C})\), one of the following must hold: {\parindent=0.7cm\begin{itemize}\item[--] every element of \(G\) is either of finite order or conjugate to an element of \(\text{Aut}(\mathbb P^2)\); \item[--] \(G\) preserves either a rational or an elliptic fibration; \item[--] \(G\) is conjugate to the group generated by the maps \(\{ (x^p y^q, x^r y^s), (\alpha x, \beta y) \}\) where \(M = \begin{pmatrix} p & q \\ r & s \end{pmatrix} \) is some fixed element of \(\text{PGL}(2)\), and \(\alpha\), \(\beta\) range over \(\mathbb C^\ast\). \end{itemize}} The paper closes with some applications of these results. It recovers some earlier results of Déserti on nilpotent subgroups of the Cremona group, and answers in the negative a question of \textit{C. Favre} [in: Séminaire Bourbaki. Volume 2008/2009. Exposés 997--1011. Paris: Société Mathématique de France (SMF). 11--43, Exp. No. 998 (2010; Zbl 1210.14015)] on finite index subgroups of solvable subgroups of \(\text{Bir}(\mathbb P^2_{\mathbb C})\).