Mordell-Weil groups of a hyperkähler manifold -- a question of F. Campana (Q935911)

This note is concerned with the algebraic structure of the Mordell-Weil group of an elliptically fibered hyperkähler manifold. A hyperkähler manifold is a simply connected compact Kähler manifold \(M\) with a nondegenerate global holomorphic \(2\)-form. A map \(\varphi:M\to B\) onto a normal projective variety \(B\) is called an abelian fibration if its generic fiber is an abelian variety defined over the function field \(k=\mathbb{C}(B)\). The Mordell-Weil group of \(\varphi\) is the group of \(k\)-rational points of the generic fiber. In his previous paper [Math. Res. Lett. 13, No. 2-3, 307--316 (2006; Zbl 1107.14013)] the author proved that if \(M\) admits two different abelian fibrations \(\varphi_1\) and \(\varphi_2\) with Mordell-Weil groups of positive rank, and if \(f_1, f_2\) are two infinite-order elements of the Mordell-Weil groups, then the subgroup generated by \(f_1\) and \(f_2\) inside the birational automorphism group of \(M\) contains a free product \(\mathbb{Z}*\mathbb{Z}\). Frédéric Campana had previously asked the author if under the same hypothesis we can choose \(f_1\) and \(f_2\) so that the subgroup that they generate is actually equal to \(\mathbb{Z}*\mathbb{Z}\), with each \(f_i\) generating one factor of the product. The author also asks whether this is actually true for all such \(f_i\). The main result of this note confirms Campana's question, and in fact proves more: given any \(f_1\), \(f_2\) of infinite order, there are integers \(m_1, m_2\) so that \(f_1^{m_1}\) and \(f_2^{m_2}\) satisfy the conclusion. Moreover the author gives an example of a \(K3\) surface which shows that in general one needs to choose \(m_i>1\), and so this gives a counterexample to the second question above.