Affine surfaces with trivial Makar-Limanov invariant (Q932850)

Let \(k\) be a field of \(\text{char\,}0\), \(R\) an affine domain over \(k\). The author is interested in the case \(\dim R= 2\). We say that \(\text{ML}(R)= k\) if the subalgebra of \(R\) of elements which are killed by every locally nilpotent \(k\)-derivation of \(R\) is \(k\) itself. \textit{T. Bandman} and \textit{L. Makar-Limanov} [Mich. Math. J. 49, No. 3, 567--582 (2001; Zbl 1079.14539)] proved that if \(k= \mathbb{C}\) and \(R\) is smooth then \(R\approx\mathbb{C}[X,Y,Z]/(XY- \varphi Z))\) for some non-constant polynomial \(\varphi(Z)\in\mathbb{C}[Z]\), provided \(R\) has a trivial canonical divisor. In this paper the author proves this for any \(k\) and \(R\) smooth over \(R\). This is achieved by using base change and appealing to Bandman-Makar-Limanov result. As a corollay it is proved that if \(R\) is a two-dimensional affine domain over \(k\) and \(R\) is smooth UFD with \(\text{ML}(R)= k\) then \(R\) is of the type described above.