Equivalent birational embedding. IV: Reduced varieties (Q6175533)

The author studies the classification of projective varieties under the action of the Cremona group of birational transformations of projective spaces. The author starts with two birational projective varieties \(X,Y\subset\mathbb P^n\) and studies the possibility to extend a birational map \(X\dashrightarrow Y\) to the ambient space. When the extension is possible \(X,Y\) are called Cremona equivalent. In the paper [\textit{M. Mella} and \textit{E. Polastri}, Bull. Lond. Math. Soc. 41, No. 1, 89--93 (2009; Zbl 1184.14021)], Polastri and the author proved that two irreducible and reduced birational projective varieties of codimension at least 2 are always Cremona equivalent. In the paper under review the author extends the result to reduced, but possibly reducible, varieties, by proving that, in this case too, when the dimension of \(X\) and \(Y\) is at most \(n-2\) then birationality and Cremona equivalence coincide. Indeed, the author proves that the Cremona equivalence of \(X,Y\) is realized by transformations belonging to a proper subgroup (the de Jonquiéres subgroup) of the Cremona group. As a consequence of the main result, the author proves that any set of reduced rational varieties of codimension at least two can be contracted by a Cremona transformation.