Holomorphic factorization of mappings into SL_n(C)

DOI10.4007/ANNALS.2012.175.1.3MaRDI QIDQ764053zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Authors Björn Ivarsson, Frank Kutzschebauch

Publication date 13 March 2012

Published in Annals of Mathematics. Second Series (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/0812.0312

holomorphic factorization holomorphic h-principle Oka principle Stein spaces

Factorization of matrices (15A23) Matrices over function rings in one or more variables (15A54) Stein spaces (32E10) Topological aspects of complex manifolds (32Q55)

Abstract: We solve Gromov's Vaserstein problem. Namely, we show that a null-homotopic holomorphic mapping from a finite dimensional reduced Stein space into SL_n(C) can be factored into a finite product of unipotent matrices with holomorphic entries.

Review text

In the present paper, the authors solve Gromov's Vaserstein problem. Namely, they show that a null-homotopic holomorphic mapping from a finite-dimensional reduced Stein space into \(\text{SL}_m(\mathbb{C})\) can be factored into a finite product of unipotent matrices with holomorphic entries. After the Gromov-Eliashberg embedding theorem for Stein manifolds [\textit{Y. Eliashberg} and \textit{M. Gromov}, ``Embeddings of Stein manifolds of dimension \(n\) into the affine space of dimension \(3n/2 + 1\), Ann. Math. (2) 136, No. 1, 123--135 (1992; Zbl 0758.32012); \textit{J. Schürmann}, ``Embeddings of Stein spaces into affine spaces of minimal dimension, Math. Ann. 307, No. 3, 381--399 (1997; Zbl 0881.32007)], this is another deep application of Gromov's holomorphic h-principle. \textit{M. Gromov} [``Oka's principle for holomorphic sections of elliptic bundles, J. Am. Math. Soc. 2, No. 4, 851--897 (1989; Zbl 0686.32012)] extended the classical Oka-Grauert principle from bundles with homogeneous fibers to fibrations with elliptic fibers. The authors use the Oka-Grauert-Gromov-principle in its strongest form as elaborated by \textit{F. Forstnerič} [``The Oka principle for sections of stratified fiber bundles, Pure Appl. Math. Q. 6, No. 3, 843--874 (2010; Zbl 1216.32005)] and \textit{F. Forstnerič} and \textit{J. Prezelj} [``Extending holomorphic sections from complex subvarieties, Math. Z. 236, No. 1, 43--68 (2001; Zbl 0968.32005)]. Let us describe the result in more detail. It is well known that the group \(\mathrm{SL}_m(\mathbb{C})\) is generated by elementary matrices \(E+\alpha e_{ij}\), \(i\neq j\), i.e., matrices with 1's on the diagonal and all entries outside the diagonal are zero, except one entry. Equivalently, every matrix \(A\in \mathrm{SL}_m(\mathbb{C})\) can be written as a finite product of upper and lower diagonal matrices (in interchanging order). The same question for matrices in \(\mathrm{SL}_m(R)\), where \(R\) is a commutative ring (e.g. the ring of complex valued functions on a space \(X\) which are continuous, smooth, algebraic or holomorphic) instead of the field \(\mathbb{C}\), is much more delicate. For results in the algebraic setting, we refer to [\textit{P. M. Cohn}, ``On the structure of the \(\mathrm{GL}_2\) of a ring, Publ. Math., Inst. Hautes Étud. Sci. 30, 365--413 (1966; Zbl 0144.26301); \textit{A. A. Suslin}, ``On the structure of the special linear group over polynomial rings, Izv. Akad. Nauk SSSR, Ser. Mat. 41, 235--252 (1977; Zbl 0354.13009); \textit{F. Grunewald}, \textit{J. Mennicke} and \textit{L. Vaserstein}, ``On the groups \(\mathrm{SL}_2 (\mathbb{Z}[x])\) and \(\mathrm{SL}_2 (k[x,y])\), Isr. J. Math. 86, No. 1--3, 157--193 (1994; Zbl 0805.20042); \textit{D. Wright}, ``The amalgamated free product structure of \(\mathrm{GL}_2(k[X_1,\dots ,X_n ])\) and the weak Jacobian theorem for two variables, J. Pure Appl. Algebra 12, 235--251 (1978; Zbl 0387.20039)]. We restrict our attention to the ring of holomorphic functions on a reduced Stein space \(X\). So, the problem amounts to factorizing a given holomorphic map \(X \rightarrow \mathrm{SL}_m(\mathbb{C})\) as a product of upper and lower diagonal unipotent matrices. Since any product of such matrices is homotopic to a constant map, one has to assume that the given map \(f\) is homotopic to a constant map, say null-homotopic. The main result of the present paper is a complete positive solution of Gromov's Vaserstein problem as posed in [Gromov, loc.cit.]: Let \(X\) be a finite dimensional reduced Stein space and \(f: X\rightarrow \mathrm{SL}_m(\mathbb{C})\) be a holomorphic mapping that is null-homotopic. Then there exists a natural number \(K\) and holomorphic mappings \(G_1, \dots, G_K: X\rightarrow \mathbb{C}^{m(m-1)/2}\) such that \(f\) can be written as a product of upper and lower diagonal unipotent matrices \[ f(x) = \left(\begin{matrix} 1 & 0\\ G_1(x) & 1\end{matrix}\right) \left(\begin{matrix} 1 & G_2(x)\\ 0 & 1\end{matrix}\right)\cdots \left(\begin{matrix} 1 & G_K(x)\\ 0 & 1\end{matrix}\right) \] for every \(x\in X\). As indicated above, the proof relies on an application of the Oka-Grauert-Gromov-principle to certain stratified fibrations. For this, a topological solution to the problem is required, i.e., a factorization of \(f\) into a finite product of unipotent matrices with continuous entries. That was achieved by \textit{L. N. Vaserstein} [``Reduction of a matrix depending on parameters to a diagonal form by addition operations, Proc. Am. Math. Soc. 103, No. 3, 741--746 (1988; Zbl 0657.55005)] after some preliminary results by \textit{W. P. Thurston} and \textit{L. N. Vaserstein} [``On \(K_1\)-theory of the Euclidean space, Topology Appl. 23, 145--148 (1986; Zbl 0611.18007)]. See [the authors, ``On the number of factors in the unipotent factorization of holomorphic mappings into \(\text{SL}_2(\mathbb C)\), Proc. Am. Math. Soc. 140, No. 3, 823--838 (2012; Zbl 1250.32009)] for an effecitive version of the main theorem with a bound on the number of factors \(K\) for the group \(\mathrm{SL}_2(\mathbb{C})\). The results of the paper under review had been announced in [``A solution of Gromov's Vaserstein problem, C. R., Math., Acad. Sci. Paris 346, No. 23--24, 1239--1243 (2008; Zbl 1160.32017)].

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