Proper triangular \(\mathbb G_a\)-actions on \(\mathbb A^4\) are translations (Q482301)

It is a classical result that algebraic actions of the additive group \({\mathbb G}_a={\mathbb G}_{a,{\mathbb C}}\) on complex affine spaces \({\mathbb A}^n={\mathbb A}^n_{\mathbb C}\) are described in terms of locally nilpotent derivations of the corresponding polynomial algebra. The complexity of the description of the action of \({\mathbb G}_a\) increases with the dimension \(n\). For the plane (\(n=2\)) every action of \({\mathbb G}_a\) is triangular with respect to a suitable coordinate system and if the action is fixed point free, then it is a translation. For \(n=3\) there are algebraic actions of \({\mathbb G}_a\) which are not triangular (the famous Nagata automorphism) but the property that a fixed point free action implies a conjugation to a translation still holds. Neither of these properties is true in higher dimensions. In the paper under review, the authors consider proper triangulable actions of \({\mathbb G}_a\) on \({\mathbb A}^4_k\) over a field \(k\) of characteristic 0 (instead of fixed point free actions). They establish that any such action is a translation with geometric quotient isomorphic to \({\mathbb A}^3_k\). This result is a consequence of the description of the structure of the geometric quotient for the proper locally triangulable \({\mathbb G}_a\)-action on a locally trivial \({\mathbb A}^3\)-bundle over a noetherian normal base scheme \(X\) defined over \(k\). When \(\dim X=1\), it is a translation with geometric quotient isomorphic to the total space of a vector bundle of rank 2 over \(X\).