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We study the complement problem in projective spaces $\mathbb{P}^n$ over any algebraically closed field: If $H, H' \subseteq \mathbb{P}^n$ are irreducible hypersurfaces of degree $d$ such that the complements $\mathbb{P}^n \setminus H$, $\mathbb{P}^n \setminus H'$ are isomorphic, are the hypersurfaces $H$, $H'$ isomorphic? For $n = 2$, the answer is positive if $d\leq 7$ and there are counterexamples when $d = 8$. In contrast we provide counterexamples for all $n, d \geq 3$ with $(n, d) \neq (3, 3)$. Moreover, we show that the complement problem has an affirmative answer for $d = 2$ and give partial results in case $(n, d) = (3, 3)$. In the course of the exposition, we prove that rational normal projective surfaces admitting a desingularisation by trees of smooth rational curves are piecewise isomorphic if and only if they coincide in the Grothendieck ring, answering affirmatively a question posed by Larsen and Lunts for such surfaces., Comment: 36 pages

We prove that any group of cardinality at most the one of $\mathbb{C}$ is a quotient of any Cremona group of rank at least $4$. This provides a definitive answer to the question of what the quotients of Cremona groups can be. As a consequence, this gives a negative answer to the question of I. Dolgachev of whether Cremona groups of all ranks are generated by involutions. As another application, we show that higher Cremona groups do not enjoy some classical group-theoretic properties (namely, the Hopfian property) which are satisfied by Cremona groups of rank $2$. Finally, we discover that the $3$-torsion of the Cremona group of rank at least $4$ is not countable. To deduce these properties of higher Cremona groups, we first describe the group of birational transformations of a non-trivial Severi-Brauer surface $S$ over a perfect field, proving in particular that if $S$ contains a point of degree $6$, then its group of birational self-maps is not generated by elements of finite order as it admits a surjective group homomorphism to~$\mathbb{Z}$. We then use this result to study Mori fibre spaces over the field of complex numbers, for which the generic fibre is a non-trivial Severi-Brauer surface., Comment: 72 pages

We describe the real forms of Gizatullin surfaces of the form $xy=p(z)$ and of Koras-Russell threefolds of the first kind. The former admit zero, two, three, four or six isomorphism classes of real forms, depending on the degree and the symmetries of the polynomial~$p$. The latter, which are threefolds given by an equation of the form $x^dy+z^k+x+t^\ell=0$, all admit exactly one real form up to isomorphism., Comment: 33 pages

Let $A$ be an abelian variety over an algebraically closed field. We show that $A$ is the automorphism group scheme of some smooth projective variety if and only if $A$ has only finitely many automorphisms as an algebraic group. This generalizes a result of Lombardo and Maffei for complex abelian varieties., Comment: 15 pages

Let $X/\mathbb{P}^1$ be a Mori fibre space with general fibre of Picard rank at least two. We prove that there is a proper closed subset $S\subsetneq X$, invariant by the connected component of the identity ${\rm Aut}^{\circ}(X)$ of the automorphism group of $X$, which is moreover the orbit of a section $s$ and whose intersection with a fibre is an orbit of the subgroup of ${\rm Aut}^{\circ}(X)$ acting trivially on $\mathbb{P}^1$. Such result is a tool to describe equivariant birational maps from $X/\mathbb{P}^1$ to other Mori fibre spaces and therefore finds its applications in the study of connected algebraic subgroups of ${\rm Aut}^{\circ}(X)$. This represents a first reduction step towards a possible classification of maximal connected algebraic subgroups of the Cremona group of rank $4$., Comment: 41 pages

We study a family of polynomials introduced by Daigle and Freudenburg, which contains the famous V\'en\'ereau polynomials and defines $\mathbb{A}^2$-fibrations over $\mathbb{A}^2$. According to the Dolgachev-Weisfeiler conjecture, every such fibration should have the structure of a locally trivial $\mathbb{A}^2$-bundle over $\mathbb{A}^2$. We follow an idea of Kaliman and Zaidenberg to show that these fibrations are locally trivial $\mathbb{A}^2$-bundles over the punctured plane, all of the same specific form $X_f$, depending on an element $f\in k[a^{\pm 1},b^{\pm 1}][x]$. We then introduce the notion of bivariables and show that the set of bivariables is in bijection with the set of locally trivial bundles $X_f$ that are trivial. This allows us to give another proof of Lewis's result stating that the second V\'en\'ereau polynomial is a variable and also to trivialise other elements of the family $X_f$. We hope that the terminology and methods developed here may lead to future study of the whole family $X_f$., Comment: 25 pages, coments are welcome

We study the connected algebraic groups acting on Mori fibrations $X \to Y$ with $X$ a rational threefold and $\mathrm{dim}(Y) \geq 1$. More precisely, for these fibre spaces we consider the neutral component of their automorphism groups and study their equivariant birational geometry. This is done using, inter alia, minimal model program and Sarkisov program and allows us to determine the maximal connected algebraic subgroups of $\mathrm{Bir}(\mathbb{P}^3)$, recovering most of the classification results of Hiroshi Umemura in the complex case., Comment: 85 pages, final version

In this article we give two explicit families of automorphisms of degree $\leq 3$ of the affine $3$-space $\mathbb{A}^3$ such that each automorphism of degree $\leq 3$ of $\mathbb{A}^3$ is a member of one of these families up to composition of affine automorphisms at the source and target; this shows in particular that all of them are tame. As an application, we give the list of all dynamical degrees of automorphisms of degree $\leq 3$ of $\mathbb{A}^3$; this is a set of $3$ integers and $9$ quadratic integers. Moreover, we also describe up to compositions with affine automorphisms for $n\geq 1$ all morphisms $\mathbb{A}^3 \to \mathbb{A}^n$ of degree $\leq 3$ with the property that the preimage of every affine hyperplane in $\mathbb{A}^n$ is isomorphic to $\mathbb{A}^2$., Comment: Prepublished version, 45 pages, comments are welcome

We study the possible dynamical degrees of automorphisms of the affine space $\mathbb{A}^n$. In dimension $n=3$, we determine all dynamical degrees arising from the composition of an affine automorphism with a triangular one. This generalises the easier case of shift-like automorphisms which can be studied in any dimension. We also prove that each weak Perron number is the dynamical degree of an affine-triangular automorphism of the affine space $\mathbb{A}^n$ for some $n$, and we give the best possible $n$ for quadratic integers, which is either $3$ or $4$.

We prove that the group of birational transformations of a Del Pezzo fibration of degree 3 over a curve is not simple, by giving a surjective group homomorphism to a free product of infinitely many groups of order 2. As a consequence we also obtain that the Cremona group of rank 3 is not generated by birational maps preserving a rational fibration. Besides, its subgroup generated by all connected algebraic subgroups is a proper normal subgroup., Comment: to appear in JEP

We study the complexity of birational self-maps of a projective threefold $X$ by looking at the birational type of surfaces contracted. These surfaces are birational to the product of the projective line with a smooth projective curve. We prove that the genus of the curves occuring is unbounded if and only if $X$ is birational to a conic bundle or a fibration into cubic surfaces. Similarly, we prove that the gonality of the curves is unbounded if and only if $X$ is birational to a conic bundle., Comment: 23 pages, some appendix added

We study large groups of birational transformations Bir(X), where X is a variety of dimension at least 3, defined over C or a subfield of C. Two prominent cases are when X is the projective space, in which case Bir(X) is the Cremona group of rank n, or when X is a smooth cubic hypersurface. In both cases, and more generally when X is birational to a conic bundle, we produce infinitely many distinct group homomorphisms from Bir(X) to Z/2, showing in particular that the group Bir(X) is not perfect and thus not simple. As a consequence we also obtain that the Cremona group of rank n at least 3 is not generated by linear and Jonqui\`eres elements., Comment: Item (RF4) in main definition 3.1 was modified: many thanks to Yang He for spotting the problem! Other minor changes. To appear in Acta Mathematica

We show that the only finite quasi-simple non-abelian groups that can faithfully act on rationally connected threefolds are the following groups: $\mathfrak{A}_5$, $\operatorname{PSL}_2(\mathbf{F}_7)$, $\mathfrak{A}_6$, $\operatorname{SL}_2(\mathbf{F}_8)$, $\mathfrak{A}_7$, $\operatorname{PSp}_4(\mathbf{F}_3)$, $\operatorname{SL}_2(\mathbf{F}_{7})$, $2.\mathfrak{A}_5$, $2.\mathfrak{A}_6$, $3.\mathfrak{A}_6$ or $6.\mathfrak{A}_6$. All of these groups with a possible exception of $2.\mathfrak{A}_6$ and $6.\mathfrak{A}_6$ indeed act on some rationally connected threefolds., Comment: 41 pages

The Cremona group is the group of birational transformations of the plane. A birational transformation for which there exists a pencil of lines which is sent onto another pencil of lines is called a Jonqui\`eres transformation. By the famous Noether-Castelnuovo theorem, every birational transformation $f$ is a product of Jonqui\`eres transformations. The minimal number of factors in such a product will be called the length, and written $\mathrm{lgth}(f)$. Even if this length is rather unpredictable, we provide an explicit algorithm to compute it, which only depends on the multiplicities of the linear system of $f$. As an application of this computation, we give a few properties of the dynamical length of $f$ defined as the limit of the sequence $n \mapsto \mathrm{lgth} (f^n) / n$. It follows for example that an element of the Cremona group is distorted if and only if it is algebraic. The computation of the length may also be applied to the so called Wright complex associated with the Cremona group: This has been done recently by Lonjou. Moreover, we show that the restriction of the length to the automorphism group of the affine plane is the classical length of this latter group (the length coming from its amalgamated structure). In another direction, we compute the lengths and dynamical lengths of all monomial transformations, and of some Halphen transformations. Finally, we show that the length is a lower semicontinuous map on the Cremona group endowed with its Zariski topology.

We introduce a new invariant, the real (logarithmic)-Kodaira dimension, that allows to distinguish smooth real algebraic surfaces up to birational diffeomorphism. As an application, we construct infinite families of smooth rational real algebraic surfaces with trivial homology groups, whose real loci are diffeomorphic to $\mathbb{R}^2$, but which are pairwise not birationally diffeomorphic. There are thus infinitely many non-trivial models of the euclidean plane, contrary to the compact case., Comment: 16 pages

In this paper we provide the complete classification of $\mathbb{P}^1$-bundles over smooth projective rational surfaces whose neutral component of the automorphism group is maximal. Our results hold over any algebraically closed field of characteristic zero., Comment: 47 pages, final version

This article provides, over any field, infinitely many algebraic embeddings of the affine spaces $\mathbb{A}^1$ and $\mathbb{A}^2$ into smooth quadrics of dimension two and three respectively, which are pairwise non-equivalent under automorphisms of the smooth quadric. Our main tools are the study of the birational morphism $\mathrm{SL}_2 \to \mathbb{A}^3$ and the fibration $\mathrm{SL}_2 \to \mathbb{A}^3 \to \mathbb{A}^1$ obtained by projections, as well as degenerations of variables of polynomial rings, and families of $\mathbb{A}^1$-fibrations., Comment: 36 pages, added some references and an example

This article describes the geometry of isomorphisms between complements of geometrically irreducible closed curves in the affine plane $\mathbb{A}^2$, over an arbitrary field, which do not extend to an automorphism of $\mathbb{A}^2$. We show that such isomorphisms are quite exceptional. In particular, they occur only when both curves are isomorphic to open subsets of the affine line $\mathbb{A}^1$, with the same number of complement points, over any field extension of the ground field. Moreover, the isomorphism is uniquely determined by one of the curves, up to left composition with an automorphism of $\mathbb{A}^2$, except in the case where the curve is isomorphic to the affine line $\mathbb{A}^1$ or to the punctured line $\mathbb{A}^1 \setminus \{0\}$. If one curve is isomorphic to $\mathbb{A}^1$, then both curves are in fact equivalent to lines. In addition, for any positive integer $n$, we construct a sequence of $n$ pairwise non-equivalent closed embeddings of $\mathbb{A}^1 \setminus \{0\}$ with isomorphic complements. In characteristic~$0$ we even construct infinite sequences with this property. Finally, we give a geometric construction that produces a large family of examples of non-isomorphic geometrically irreducible closed curves in $\mathbb{A}^2$ that have isomorphic complements, answering negatively the Complement Problem posed by Hanspeter Kraft.. This also gives a negative answer to the holomorphic version of this problem in any dimension $n \geq 2$. The question had been raised by Pierre-Marie Poloni., Comment: to appear in Duke Math

The Cremona group is topologically simple when endowed with the Zariski or Euclidean topology, in any dimension $\ge 2$ and over any infinite field. Two elements are moreover always connected by an affine line, so the group is path-connected.

A priori, the set of birational transformations of an algebraic variety is just a group. We survey the possible algebraic structures that we may add to it, using in particular parametrised family of birational transformations., Comment: 12 pages, submitted for proceedings of the "Clifford lectures" conference in New Orleans, in March 2015

In the group of polynomial automorphisms of the plane, the conjugacy class of an element is closed if and only if the element is diagonalisable. In this article, we show that this does not hold for the group of special automorphisms, giving then a first step towards the direction of showing that this group is not simple, as an infinite-dimensional algebraic group., Comment: 21 pages

We characterise smooth curves in a smooth cubic threefold whose blow-ups produce a weak-Fano threefold. These are curves $C$ of genus $g$ and degree $d$, such that (i) $2(d-5) \le g$ and $d\le 6$; (ii) $C$ does not admit a 3-secant line in the cubic threefold. Among the list of ten possible such types $(g,d)$, two were previously left as open numerical possibilities, namely $(g,d) = (0,5)$ and $(2,6)$. Using the Sarkisov link associated with a curve of type $(2,6)$, we are able to produce the first example of a pseudo-automorphism with dynamical degree greater than $1$ on a smooth threefold with Picard number $3$. We also prove that the group of birational selfmaps of any smooth cubic threefold contains elements contracting surfaces birational to any given ruled surface., Comment: In the last version, the relation with the work of [CM13] has been developed and the fact that the open subset in the moduli space of curve is dense has been added

This article studies algebraic elements of the Cremona group. In particular, we show that the set of all these elements is a countable union of closed subsets but it is not closed., Comment: 7 pages

This article studies the group generated by automorphisms of the projective space of dimension $n$ and by the standard birational involution of degree $n$. Every element of this group only contracts rational hypersurfaces, but in odd dimension, there are simple elements having this property which do not belong to the group. Geometric properties of the elements of the group are given, as well as a description of its intersection with monomial transformations.

This article studies the possible degenerations of plane Cremona transformations of some degree into maps of smaller degree., Comment: 21 pages, corrected typos and Proposition 3.21, Mathematische Zeitschrift, published online on 2015/9/25

The dynamical degree $\lambda(f)$ of a birational transformation $f$ measures the exponential growth rate of the degree of the formulae that define the $n$-th iterate of $f$. We study the set of all dynamical degrees of all birational transformations of projective surfaces, and the relationship between the value of $\lambda(f)$ and the structure of the conjugacy class of $f$. For instance, the set of all dynamical degrees of birational transformations of the complex projective plane is a closed and well ordered set of algebraic numbers., Comment: 65 pages

We give an explicit set of generators for various natural subgroups of the real Cremona group Bir_R(P^2). This completes and unifies former results by several authors.

We compute the automorphism group of the affine surfaces with the coordinate ring isomorphic to a cluster algebra of rank 2., Comment: To appear in Transform. Groups

We study the group of automorphisms of the affine plane preserving some given curve, over any field. The group is proven to be algebraic, except in the case where the curve is a bunch of parallel lines. Moreover, a classification of the groups of positive dimension occuring is also given in the case where the curve is geometrically irreducible and the field is perfect., Comment: 21 pages, typos corrected, minor changes, improved exposition

We describe a family of rational affine surfaces S with huge groups of automorphisms in the following sense: the normal subgroup of Aut(S) generated by all its algebraic subgroups is not generated by any countable family of such subgroups, and the quotient of Aut(S) by this subgroup contains a free group over an uncountable set of generators.

We provide the existence, for every complex rational smooth affine curve $\Gamma$, of a linear action of $\mathrm{Aut}(\Gamma)$ on the affine 3-dimensional space $\mathbb{A}^3$, together with a $\mathrm{Aut}(\Gamma)$-equivariant closed embedding of $\Gamma$ into $\mathbb{A}^3$. It is not possible to decrease the dimension of the target, the reason for this obstruction is also precisely described., Comment: 18 pages. To appear in Math. Res. Letters

We study the algebraic structure of the $n$-dimensional Cremona group and show that it is not an algebraic group of infinite dimension (ind-group) if $n\ge 2$. We describe the obstruction to this, which is of a topological nature. By contrast, we show the existence of a Euclidean topology on the Cremona group which extends that of its classical subgroups and makes it a topological group., Comment: 20 pages, to appear in Annals of Mathematics

We give a way to construct group of pseudo-automorphisms of rational varieties of any dimension that fix pointwise the image of a cubic hypersurface of $P^n. These group are free products of involutions, and most of their elements have dynamical degree >1. Moreover, the Picard group of the varieties obtained is not big, if the dimension is at least 3. We also answer a question of E. Bedford on the existence of birational maps of the plane that cannot be lifted to automorphisms of dynamical degree >1, even if we compose them with an automorphism of the plane., Comment: 18 pages

We study the polynomial fibration induced by the equation of the Klein surfaces obtained as quotient of finite linear groups of automorphisms of the plane; this surfaces are of type A, D, E, corresponding to their singularities. The generic fibre of the polynomial fibration is a surface defined over the function field of the line. We proved that it is not rational in cases D, E, although it is obviously rational in the case A. The group of automorphisms of the Klein surfaces is also described, and is linear and of finite dimension in cases D, E; this result being obviously false in case A., Comment: 18 pages

This article studies the sequence of iterative degrees of a birational map of the plane. This sequence is known either to be bounded or to have a linear, quadratic or exponential growth. The classification elements of infinite order with a bounded sequence of degrees is achieved, the case of elements of finite order being already known. The coefficients of the linear and quadratic growth are then described, and related to geometrical properties of the map. The dynamical number of base-points is also studied. Applications of our results are the description of embeddings of the Baumslag-Solitar groups and GL(2,Q) into the Cremona group.

We characterise smooth curves in P^3 whose blow-up produces a threefold with anticanonical divisor big and nef. These are curves C of degree d and genus g lying on a smooth quartic, such that (i) $4d-30 \le g\le 14$ or $(g,d) = (19,12)$, (ii) there is no 5-secant line, 9-secant conic, nor 13-secant twisted cubic to C. This generalises the classical similar situation for the blow-up of points in P^2. We describe then Sarkisov links constructed from these blow-ups, and are able to prove the existence of Sarkisov links which were previously only known as numerical possibilities., Comment: 36 pages, to appear in Proc. London Math. Soc

Geometric and dynamic properties of embeddings of SL(2,Z) into the Cremona group are studied. Infinitely many non-conjugate embeddings which preserve the type (i.e. which send elliptic, parabolic and hyperbolic elements onto elements of the same type) are provided. The existence of infinitely many non-conjugate elliptic, parabolic and hyperbolic embeddings is also shown. In particular, a group G of automorphisms of a smooth surface S obtained by blowing-up 10 points of the complex projective plane is given. The group G is isomorphic to SL(2,Z), preserves an elliptic curve and all its elements of infinite order are hyperbolic., Comment: to appear in Transformation Groups

We study the group of symplectic birational transformations of the plane. It is proved that this group is generated by $\mathrm{SL}(2,\mathbb{Z})$, the torus and a special map of order $5$, as it was conjectured by A. Usnich. Then we consider a special subgroup $H$, of finite type, defined over any field which admits a surjective morphism to the Thompson group of piecewise linear automorphisms of $\mathbb{Z}^2$. We prove that the presentation for this group conjectured by Usnich is correct., Comment: 14 pages

We give a simple set of generators and relations for the Cremona group of the plane. Namely, we show that the Cremona group is the amalgamated product of the de Jonqui\`eres group with the group of automorphisms of the plane, divided by one relation which is $\sigma\tau=\tau\sigma$, where $\tau=(x:y:z)\mapsto (y:x:z)$ and $\sigma=(x:y:z)\dasharrow (yz:xz:xy)$.

We develop technics of birational geometry to study automorphisms of affine surfaces admitting many distinct rational fibrations, with a particular focus on the interactions between automorphisms and these fibrations. In particular, we associate to each surface $S$ of this type a graph encoding equivalence classes of rational fibrations from which it is possible to decide for instance if the automorphism group of $S$ is generated by automorphisms preserving these fibrations.

In this article we study the transitivity of the group of automorphisms of real algebraic surfaces. We characterize real algebraic surfaces with very transitive automorphism groups. We give applications to the classification of real algebraic models of compact surfaces: these applications yield new insight into the geometry of the real locus, proving several surprising facts on this geometry. This geometry can be thought of as a half-way point between the biregular and birational geometries., Comment: Compositio Mathematica (2010) To appear

The Cremona group is connected in any dimension and, endowed with its topology, it is simple in dimension 2. ----- Le groupe de Cremona est connexe en toute dimension et, muni de sa topologie, il est simple en dimension 2., Comment: 6 pages, in french

We give the classification of elements - respectively cyclic subgroups - of finite order of the Cremona group, up to conjugation. Natural parametrisations of conjugacy classes, related to fixed curves of positive genus, are provided., Comment: 30 pages, to appear in Comment. Math. Helv

This article deals with the study of the birational transformations of the projective complex plane which leave invariant an irreducible algebraic curve. We try to describe the state of art and provide some new results on this subject., Comment: 17 pages

We give a complete classification of maximal algebraic subgroups of the Cremona group of the plane and provide algebraic varieties that parametrize the conjugacy classes. ----- Nous donnons une classification compl\`ete des sous-groupes alg\'ebriques maximaux du groupe de Cremona du plan et explicitons les vari\'et\'es qui param\`etrent les classes de conjugaison., Comment: Text in French, Translated introduction, 35 pages, 1 figure, to appear in Transform. Groups

Given two irreducible curves of the plane which have isomorphic complements, it is natural to ask whether there exists an automorphism of the plane that sends one curve on the other. This question has a positive answer for a large family of curves and H.Yoshihara conjectured that it is true in general. We exhibit counterexamples to this conjecture, over any ground field. In some of the cases, the curves are isomorphic and in others not; this provides counterexamples of two different kinds. Finally, we use our construction to find the existence of surprising non-linear automorphisms of affine surfaces., Comment: 9 pages, 3 figures

It is well-known that affine (respectively projective) simple arrangements of n pseudo-lines may have at most n(n-2)/3 (respectively n(n-1)/3) triangles. However, these bounds are reached for only some values of n (mod 6). We provide the best polynomial bound for the affine and the projective case, and for each value of n (mod 6)., Comment: 12 pages, 7 figures