Algebraic theory of locally nilpotent derivations (Q5918218)

The book under review is the second edition of the author's book by the same title published in (2006; Zbl 1121.13002). Let \(A\) be a commutative ring and \(M\) an \(A\)-module. A \textit{derivation} \(D\) is an additive map \(D:A\to M\) satisfying the Leibniz rule. That is, \(D(a+b)=D(a)+D(b)\) and \(D(ab)=aD(b)+bD(a)\) for all \(a,b\in A\). A derivation \(D:A\to A\) is called \textit{locally nilpotent} (abbreviated to LND) if for any \(a\in A\), there exists some \(n\) such that \(D^n(a)=0\). A typical example is \(A=R[x]\), polynomial ring in one variable over a ring and \(D=\frac{d}{dx}\), the usual derivative. Loosely speaking, the study of LNDs has been to see whether given one, how closely it resembles the typical one as above. As one would expect from the \textit{Encyclopedia} series, the book covers a lot of material and unlike the reviewer, most people would not read it from cover to cover. Since the review of the first edition covered many of the topics in the book, I shall mostly restrict my attention to some of the additions. The subject has blossomed further in the last decade and several new results have been proved. These include deep results of Bhatwadekar, Neena Gupta, Daigle and the author. The author has included a proof of Abhyankar-Eakin-Heinzer Theorem, originally proved in 1972, due to Makar-Limanov. The theorem states that if \(R,S\) are integral domains of transcendence degree one over a field \(k\) and \(R[X_1,\ldots, X_n]\) and \(S[X_1,\ldots,X_n]\) are isomorphic as \(k\)-algebras, then \(R\) and \(S\) are isomorphic as \(k\)-algebras. The book also covers more extensively results on \(\mathbb{G}_a\) actions including many more historical results. As you would expect, many important results are stated, with an extensive bibliography to direct the reader, without proofs. Equal number of results are proved, though the reasons behind which proofs to include and which ones to omit was not very clear to the reviewer. One suspects that proofs which are more algebraic are included and the ones which are more geometric excluded. The book ends with an epilogue where the author describes many of the important problems at the forefront of the subject. The last one is \textit{Kronecker's paradox} and I will not spoil the ending for the assiduous reader. The author has done an enormous service by collecting such a lot of information together and one hopes this will entice younger researchers into the field. As all books, this too has minor typos and some inefficient proofs. For the reviewer, the main improvement would have been to include a list of notions and notations when they first appear. This would help anyone wanting to read the book at a point of his or her interest, since the subject is notation-heavy.