Extension of automorphisms of rational smooth affine curves (Q736774)

From [\textit{G. E. Bredon}, Introduction to compact transformation groups. York-London: Academic Press (1972; Zbl 0246.57017), Theorem 1] any smooth affine variety \(X\) of dimension \(n\) defined over the field \(\mathbb{C}\) of complex numbers admits a closed embedding into the affine \(m\)-space \(\mathbb{A}^m\), when \(m \geq 2n+1\). In particular, if \(m \geq 2n+2\) then by a result due to Nori, Srinivas and Kaliman, any two closed embeddings \(\alpha, \alpha^\prime: X \rightarrow \mathbb{A}^m\) are equivalent, i.e. there exists \(f \in\mathrm{Aut}(\mathbb{A}^m)\) such that \(\alpha^\prime=f \circ \alpha\); see [\textit{A. Borel}, Linear algebraic groups. 2nd enlarged ed. New York etc.: Springer-Verlag (1991; Zbl 0726.20030)] and [Bredon, loc. cit.]. From this, if \(\alpha: X \rightarrow \mathbb{A}^m\) is a closed embedding where \(X\) is a smooth affine variety of dimension \(n\) and \(m \geq 2n+2\), then every automorphism \(\varphi\) of \(X\) extends to an automorphism of \(\mathbb{A}^m\) because of the equivalent of the embedding \(\alpha \circ \varphi\) and \(\alpha\). Recall that it is not always possible to extend the group structure of \(\mathrm{Aut}(X)\) on \(\mathbb{A}^m\) that restrict on \(X\) to the action of \(\mathrm{Aut}(X)\) on it. In fact \textit{H. Derksen} et al. showed in [J. Reine Angew. Math. 508, 213--235 (1999; Zbl 0915.32005)] that there does not exists, for any \(m\), any injective group homomorphism from \(\mathrm{Aut}(\mathbb{C}^* \times \mathbb{C}^*) \cong\mathrm{GL}_2(\mathbb{Z}) \rtimes (\mathbb{C}^*)^2\) to the group \(\mathrm{Diff}(\mathbb{R}^m)\) of diffeomorphisms of \(\mathbb{R}^m\). If \(G\) is an algebraic group acting on an affine variety \(X\), then \(X\) admits a \(G\)-equivariant closed embedding into a finite dimensional \(G\)-module [\textit{A. Beauville}, Contemp. Math. 522, 23--29 (2010; Zbl 1218.20030), Proposition 1.12]. In particular, for every smooth affine curve \(\Gamma\), there exists a linear action of \(\mathrm{Aut}(\Gamma)\) on \(\mathbb{A}^m\) and also a \(\mathrm{Aut}(\Gamma)\)-equivariant closed embedding of \(\Gamma\) into \(\mathbb{A}^m\). How to find the smallest possible \(m\)? In this article the authors deal with rational smooth affine curves. The proof of Borel in this case gives \(m=2 \cdot |\mathrm{Aut}(\Gamma)|\) when \(\mathrm{Aut}(\Gamma)\) is finite. The fist main result of the paper shows that it is already possible to obtain \(m=3\). More precisely they proved that every rational smooth affine curve \(\Gamma\) admits an \(\mathrm{Aut}(\Gamma)\)-equivariant closed embedding into \(\mathbb{A}^3\) and that there exist such embeddings for which the action of \(\mathrm{Aut}(\Gamma)\) on \(\mathbb{A}^3\) is linear (Theorem 1). Even if is quite easy to construct closed embeddings into the affine plane \(\mathbb{A}^2\) for all rational smooth affine curves \(\Gamma\), the authors in the second main result of this paper establish impossibility statements showing that it would be too optimistic in general to look for closed embeddings into \(\mathbb{A}^2\) in such a way that every automorphism of the curve extends to an automorphism of the ambient space (Corollary 2.6). More precisely, in Theorem 2, they proved that there exist rational smooth affine curves \(\Gamma\) with \(\mathrm{Aut}(\Gamma) \neq 1\) such that for every closed embedding of \(\Gamma\) into \(\mathbb{A}^2\), the identity on \(\Gamma\) is the unique automorphism that extends to an automorphism of \(\mathbb{A}^2\).