Remarks on the degree growth of birational transformations

We look at sequences of positive integers that can be realized as degree sequences of iterates of rational dominant maps of smooth projective varieties over arbitrary fields. New constraints on the degree growth of endomorphisms of the affine space and examples of degree sequences are displayed. We also show that the set of all degree sequences of rational maps is countable; this generalizes a result of Bonifant and Fornaess.Comment: 12 page

Subgroups of cremona groups

The Cremona group in n-variables Cr_n(C) is the group of birational transformations of the complex projective n-space. This thesis contributes to the research on Cremona groups through the study of certain classes of „large'' subgroups. In the first part we consider algebraic embeddings of Cr_2(C) into Cr_n(C). In particular, we describe geometrical properties of an embedding of Cr_2(C) into Cr_5(C) that was discovered by Gizatullin. We also classify all algebraic embeddings from Cr_2(C) into Cr_3(C), and we partially generalize this result to embeddings of Cr_n(C) into Cr_{n+1}(C). In a second part, we look at degree sequences of birational transformations of varieties over arbitrary fields. We show that there exist only countably many such sequences and we give new obstructions on the degree growth of automorphisms of affine n-space. In the third part, we classify subgroups of Cr_2(C) containing only elliptic elements, i.e. elements whose iterates are of bounded degree. From this we deduce in particular the Tits alternative for arbitrary subgroups of Cr_2(C). In the last part, we show that every finitely generated simple subgroup of Cr_2(C) is finite and, under the hypothesis of an unproven conjectural lemma, that a simple group can be embedded into Cr_2(C) if and only if it can be embedded into PGL_3(C)

Finitely generated subgroups of algebraic elements of plane Cremona groups are bounded

We prove that any finitely generated subgroup of the plane Cremona group consisting only of algebraic elements is of bounded degree. This follows from a more general result on `decent' actions on infinite direct sums. We apply our results to describe the degree growth of finitely generated subgroups of the plane Cremona group