Monotonicity of dynamical degrees for Henon-like and polynomial-like maps.

We prove that, for every invertible horizontal-like map (i.e., Hénon-like map) in any dimension, the sequence of the dynamical degrees is increasing until that of maximal value, which is the main dynamical degree, and decreasing after that. Similarly, for polynomial-like maps in any dimension, the sequence of dynamical degrees is increasing until the last one, which is the topological degree. This is the first time that such a property is proved outside of the algebraic setting. Our proof is based on the construction of a suitable deformation for positive closed currents, which relies on tools from pluripotential theory and the solution of the d, \bar \partial, and dd^c equations on convex domains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]