On solvable subgroups of the Cremona group

From MaRDI portal



Abstract: The Cremona group mathrmBir(mathbbPm2athbbC) is the group of birational self-maps of mathbbPm2athbbC. Using the action of mathrmBir(mathbbPm2athbbC) on the Picard-Manin space of mathbbPm2athbbC we characterize its solvable subgroups. If mathrmGsubsetmathrmBir(mathbbPm2athbbC) is solvable, non abelian, and infinite, then up to finite index: either any element of mathrmG is of finite order or conjugate to an automorphism of mathbbPm2athbbC, or mathrmG preserves a unique fibration that is rational or elliptic, or mathrmG is, up to conjugacy, a subgroup of the group generated by one hyperbolic monomial map and the diagonal automorphisms. We also give some corollaries.


The subgroups of the Cremona group \(\text{Bir}(\mathbb P^2_{\mathbb C})\) with special properties have long been the object of study. In the case of finite subgroups, the story has classical origins, beginning with \textit{E. Bertini} [Annali di Mat. (2) 8, 254--287 (1877; JFM 09.0578.02)] and culminating in the work of \textit{I. V. Dolgachev} and \textit{V. A. Iskovskikh} [Prog. Math. 269, 443--548 (2009; Zbl 1219.14015)]. There has also been considerable work done on, for example, finitely generated [\textit{S. Cantat}, Ann. Math. (2) 174, No. 1, 299--340 (2011; Zbl 1233.14011)] and nilpotent [\textit{J. Déserti}, Bull. Braz. Math. Soc. (N.S.) 38, No. 3, 377--388 (2007; Zbl 1222.14028)] subgroups. The object of the present paper is to study the solvable subgroups of the Cremona group.NEWLINENEWLINEThe main result of the paper is that if \(G\) is an infinite, solvable, and non-virtually abelian subgroup of \(\text{Bir}(\mathbb P^2_{\mathbb C})\), one of the following must hold: {\parindent=0.7cm\begin{itemize}\item[--] every element of \(G\) is either of finite order or conjugate to an element of \(\text{Aut}(\mathbb P^2)\); \item[--] \(G\) preserves either a rational or an elliptic fibration; \item[--] \(G\) is conjugate to the group generated by the maps \(\{ (x^p y^q, x^r y^s), (\alpha x, \beta y) \}\) where \(M = \begin{pmatrix} p & q \\ r & s \end{pmatrix} \) is some fixed element of \(\text{PGL}(2)\), and \(\alpha\), \(\beta\) range over \(\mathbb C^\ast\). NEWLINENEWLINE\end{itemize}} The paper closes with some applications of these results. It recovers some earlier results of Déserti on nilpotent subgroups of the Cremona group, and answers in the negative a question of \textit{C. Favre} [in: Séminaire Bourbaki. Volume 2008/2009. Exposés 997--1011. Paris: Société Mathématique de France (SMF). 11--43, Exp. No. 998 (2010; Zbl 1210.14015)] on finite index subgroups of solvable subgroups of \(\text{Bir}(\mathbb P^2_{\mathbb C})\).











This page was built for publication: On solvable subgroups of the Cremona group

Report a bug (only for logged in users!)Click here to report a bug for this page (MaRDI item Q281491)