In this paper we complete the classification of effective C*-actions on smooth affine surfaces up to conjugation in the full automorphism group and up to inversion of C*. If a smooth affine surface V admits more than one C*-action then it is known to be Gizatullin i.e., it can be completed by a linear chain of smooth rational curves. In our previous paper we gave a sufficient condition, in terms of the Dolgachev- Pinkham-Demazure (or DPD) presentation, for the uniqueness of a C*-action on a Gizatullin surface. In the present paper we show that this condition is also necessary, at least in the smooth case. In fact, if the uniqueness fails for a smooth Gizatullin surface V which is neither toric nor Danilov-Gizatullin, then V admits a continuous family of pairwise non-conjugated C*-actions depending on one or two parameters. We give an explicit description of all such surfaces and their C*-actions in terms of DPD presentations. We also show that for every k > 0 one can find a Danilov- Gizatullin surface V (n) of index n = n(k) with a family of pairwise non-conjugate C+-actions depending on k parameters.
We construct algebraic families of exotic affine 3-spheres, that is, smooth affine threefolds diffeomorphic to a non-degenerate smooth complex affine quadric of dimension 3 but non algebraically isomorphic to it. We show in particular that for every smooth topologically contractible affine surface S with trivial automorphism group, there exists a canonical smooth family of pairwise non isomorphic exotic affine 3-spheres parametrized by the closed points of S.
We construct two non isomorphic contractible affine threefolds X and Y with isomorphic cylinders, showing that the generalized Cancellation Problem has a negative answer in general for contractible affine threefolds. We also establish that X and Y are actually biholomorphic as complex analytic varieties, providing the first example of a pair of biholomorphic but not isomorphic exotic affine 3-spaces.
We state two conjectures that together allow one to describe the set of smoothing components of a Gorenstein toric affine 3-fold in terms of a combinatorially defined and easily studied set of Laurent polynomials called 0-mutable polynomials. We explain the origin of the conjectures in mirror symmetry and present some of the evidence.
In this paper we construct an equivariant embedding of the affine space $\mathbb{A}^n$ with the translation group action into a complete non-projective algebraic variety $X$ for all $n \geq 3$. The theory of toric varieties is used as the main tool for this construction. In the case of $n = 3$ we describe the orbit structure on the variety $X$.
A classical result of Miyanishi-Sugie and Keel-McKernan asserts that for smooth affine surfaces, affine-uniruledness is equivalent to affine-ruledness, both properties being in fact equivalent to the negativity of the logarithmic Kodaira dimension. Here we show in contrast that starting from dimension three, there exists smooth affine varieties which are affine-uniruled but not affine-ruled.
We construct families of smooth affine surfaces with pairwise non isomorphic A 1-cylinders but whose A 2-cylinders are all isomorphic. These arise as complements of cuspidal hyperplane sections of smooth projective cubic surfaces.
We give a general structure theorem for affine A 1-fibrations on smooth quasi-projective surfaces. As an application, we show that every smooth A 1-fibered affine surface non-isomorphic to the total space of a line bundle over a smooth affine curve fails the Zariski Cancellation Problem. The present note is an expanded version of a talk given at the Kinosaki Algebraic Geometry Symposium in October 2019.
We classify closed curves isomorphic to the affine line in the complement of a smooth rational projective plane conic Q. Over a field of characteristic zero, we show that up to the action of the subgroup of the Cremona group of the plane consisting of birational endomorphisms restricting to biregular auto-morphisms outside Q, there are exactly two such lines: the restriction of a smooth conic osculating Q at a rational point and the restriction of the tangent line to Q at a rational point. In contrast, we give examples illustrating the fact that over fields of positive characteristic, there ex…
We consider fibrations by affine lines on smooth affine surfaces obtained as complements of smooth rational curves $B$ in smooth projective surfaces $X$ defined over an algebraically closed field of characteristic zero. We observe that except for two exceptions, these surfaces $X \setminus B$ admit infinitely many families of $\mathbb{A}^1$-fibrations over the projective line with irreducible fibers and a unique singular fiber of arbitrarily large multiplicity. For $\mathbb{A}^1$-fibrations over the affine line, we give a new and essentially self-contained proof that the set of equivalence cla…
We give a corrected statement of the theorem of Gurjar and Miyanishi, which classifies smooth affine surfaces of Kodaira dimension zero, whose coordinate ring is factorial and has trivial units. Denote the class of such surfaces by $\mathcal{S}_{0}$. An infinite series of surfaces in $\mathcal{S}_{0}$, not listed by Gurjar and Miyanishi, was recently obtained by Freudenburg, Kojima and Nagamine as affine modifications of the plane. We complete their list to a series containing arbitrarily high-dimensional families of pairwise non-isomorphic surfaces in $\mathcal{S}_{0}$. Moreover, we classify …
Let $Z\to X$ be a closed immersion of smooth affine schemes over an arbitrary field $k$, and $X^h_Z$ denote the henselization of $X$ along $Z$. For each presheaf $E\colon \mathbf{SH}(k)\to \mathrm{Ab}^\mathrm{op}$ on the stable motivic homotopy category over $k$ and the induced continuous presheaf $E\colon \mathrm{EssSm}_k\to \mathrm{Ab}^\mathrm{op}$ on the category of essentially smooth schemes there is a homomorphism \[E(X^h_Z)\to E(Z).\] We prove that this is an isomorphism for any $l_\varepsilon$-torsion presheaf $E$, for $l\in \mathbb Z$, $(l,\mathrm{chark}\,k)=1$, and $l_\varepsilon=\sum…
For ring of differential operators on smooth affine algebraic variety over perfect field of prime characteristic a set of algebra generators and a set of defining relations are found explicitly.
We show various properties of smooth projective D-affine varieties. In particular, any smooth projective D-affine variety is algebraically simply connected and its image under a fibration is D-affine. In characteristic zero such D-affine varieties are also uniruled. We also show that (apart from a few small characteristics) a smooth projective surface is D-affine if and only if it is isomorphic to either ${\mathbb P}^2$ or ${\mathbb P}^1\times {\mathbb P}^1$. In positive characteristic, a basic tool in the proof is a new generalization of Miyaoka's generic semipositivity theorem.
For any finite abelian group G, the equivariant Gromov-Witten invariants of C^r/G can be viewed as a certain kind of abelian Hurwitz-Hodge integrals. In this note, we use Tseng's orbifold quantum Riemann-Roch theorem to express this kind of abelian Hurwitz-Hodge integrals as a sum over Feynman graphs, where the weight of each graph is expressed in terms of descendant integrals over moduli spaces of stable curves and representations of G. This expression will play a crucial role in the proof of the remodeling conjecture (arXiv:0709.1453, arXiv:0807.0597) for affine toric Calabi-Yau 3-orbifolds …
Let $G$ be a connected reductive algebraic group. In this note we prove that for a quasi-affine $G$-spherical variety the weight monoid is determined by the weights of its non-trivial $\mathbb{G}_a$-actions that are homogeneous with respect to a Borel subgroup of $G$. As an application we get that a smooth affine $G$-spherical variety that is non-isomorphic to a torus is determined by its automorphism group inside the category of smooth affine irreducible varieties.
Let G be a simply-connected simple compact Lie group over the complex numbers. The affine Grassmannian is a projective ind-variety, homotopy-equivalent to the loop space of G and closely analogous to a maximal flag variety of the classical Grassmannian manifold. It has a Schubert cell decomposition indexed by the coroot lattice or equivalently by the minimal length coset representatives for the affine Weyl group modulo the Weyl group for G. The closure of an affine Schubert cell is a finite dimensional projective variety that we call an affine Schubert variety. In this paper we completely dete…
It is proved in this paper that a locally complete intersection curve in a smooth affine C-algebra with trival conormal bundle is a set theoretic complete intersection if its corresponding class in the Grothendieck Group is torsion.
We show that the generic fiber of a family of smooth $\mathbb{A}^{1}$-ruled affine surfaces always carries an $\mathbb{A}^{1}$-fibration, possibly after a finite extension of the base. In the particular case where the general fibers of the family are irrational surfaces, we establish that up to shrinking the base, such a family actually factors through an $\mathbb{A}^{1}$-fibration over a certain scheme, induced by the MRC-fibration of a relative smooth projective model of the family. For affine threefolds fibered by irrational $\mathbb{A}^{1}$-ruled surfaces, this induced $\mathbb{A}^{1}$-fib…
Let G be a connected complex reductive group. A well known theorem of I. Losev's says that a smooth affine spherical G-variety X is uniquely determined by its weight monoid, which is the set of irreducible representations of G that occur in the coordinate ring of X. In this paper, we use the combinatorial theory of spherical varieties and a smoothness criterion of R. Camus to characterize the weight monoids of smooth affine spherical varieties.
We show that every smooth Schubert variety of affine type $\tilde{A}$ is an iterated fibre bundle of Grassmannians, extending an analogous result by Ryan and Wolper for Schubert varieties of finite type $A$. As a consequence, we finish a conjecture of Billey-Crites that a Schubert variety in affine type $\tilde{A}$ is smooth if and only if the corresponding affine permutation avoids the patterns $4231$ and $3412$. Using this iterated fibre bundle structure, we compute the generating function for the number of smooth Schubert varieties of affine type $\tilde{A}$.
We characterize embeddability of algebraic varieties into smooth toric varieties and prevarieties. Our embedding results hold also in an equivariant context and thus generalize a well known embedding theorem of Sumihiro on quasiprojective G-varieties. The main idea is to reduce the embedding problem to the affine case. This is done by constructing equivariant affine conoids, a tool which extends the concept of an equivariant affine cone over a projective G-variety to a more general framework.
The theory of framed motives by Garkusha and Panin gives computations in the stable motivic homotopy category $\mathbf{SH}(k)$ in terms of Voevodsky's framed correspondences. In particular the motivically fibrant $Ω$-resolution in positive degrees of the motivic suspension spectrum $Σ_{\mathbb P^1}^\infty X_+$, where $X_+=X\amalg *$, for a smooth scheme $X\in \mathrm{Sm}_k$ over an infinite perfect field $k$, is computed. The computation by Garkusha, Neshitov and Panin of the framed motives of relative motivic spheres $(\mathbb A^l\times X,(\mathbb A^l-0)\times X)$, $X\in \mathrm{Sm}_k$, is on…
Let $X$ be a smooth affine algebraic variety over the field of complex numbers which is contractible. Then every algebraic $G$-torsor on $X$ is algebraically trivial if $G$ is a semi-simple algebraic group. We also show that if $X$ is a smooth affine algebraic variety such that $Ω^1_X$ is trivial and $X$ is topologically simply connected with $H^i(X,{\mathbb Z})=0$ for $i=1,2$ and $3$, then every algebraic $G$-torsor on $X$ is algebraically trivial for a semi-simple algebraic group $G$.
We prove that the affine cone over a general primitively polarised K3 surface of genus g is smoothable if and only if g\le 10 or g=12. We also give several examples of singularities with special behaviour, such as surfaces whose affine cone is smoothable even though the projective cone is not.
A smooth family $φ:\mathcal V\to S$ of surfaces will be called {\em completable} if there is a logarithmic deformation $(\bar {\mathcal V},{\mathcal D})$ over $S$ so that ${\mathcal V}=\bar{\mathcal V}\backslash {\mathcal D}$. Two smooth surfaces $V$ and $V'$ are said to be deformations of each other if there is a completable flat family ${\mathcal V}\to S$ of smooth surfaces over a connected base so that $V$ and $V'$ are fibers over suitable points $s,s'\in S$. This relation generates an equivalence relation called {\em deformation equivalence}. In this paper we give a complete combinatorial …
We prove that a normal affine surface $V$ over $\bf C$ admits an effective action of a maximal torus ${\bf T}={\bf C}^{*n}$ ($n\le 2$) such that any other effective ${\bf C}^*$-action is conjugate to a subtorus of $\bf T$ in Aut $(V)$, in the following particular cases: (a) the Makar-Limanov invariant ML$(V)$ is nontrivial, (b) $V$ is a toric surface, (c) $V={\bf P}^1\times {\bf P}^1\backslash Δ$, where $Δ$ is the diagonal, and (d) $V={\bf P}^2\backslash Q$, where $Q$ is a nonsingular quadric. In case (a) this generalizes a result of Bertin for smooth surfaces, whereas (b) was previously known…
Schubert varieties in finite dimensional flag manifolds G/P are a well-studied family of projective varieties indexed by elements of the corresponding Weyl group W. In particular, there are many tests for smoothness and rational smoothness of these varieties. One key result due to Lakshmibai-Sandhya is that in type A the smooth Schubert varieties are precisely those that are indexed by permutations that avoid the patterns 4231 and 3412. Recently, there has been a flurry of research related to the infinite dimensional analogs of flag manifolds corresponding with G being a Kac-Moody group and W …
We provide the existence, for every complex rational smooth affine curve $Γ$, of a linear action of $\mathrm{Aut}(Γ)$ on the affine 3-dimensional space $\mathbb{A}^3$, together with a $\mathrm{Aut}(Γ)$-equivariant closed embedding of $Γ$ into $\mathbb{A}^3$. It is not possible to decrease the dimension of the target, the reason for this obstruction is also precisely described.
We study a kind of modification of an affine domain which produces another affine domain. First appeared in passing in the basic paper of O. Zariski (1942), it was further considered by E.D. Davis (1967). The first named author applied its geometric counterpart to construct contractible smooth affine varieties non-isomorphic to Euclidean spaces. Here we provide certain conditions which guarantee preservation of the topology under a modification. As an application, we show that the group of biregular automorphisms of the affine hypersurface $X \subset C^{k+2}$ given by the equation $uv=p(x_1,..…
We introduce Koras-Russell fiber bundles over algebraically closed fields of characteristic zero. After a single suspension, this exhibits an infinite family of smooth affine A1-contractible 3-folds. Moreover, we give examples of stably A1-contractible smooth affine 4-folds containing a Brieskorn-Pham surface, and a family of smooth affine 3-folds with a higher dimensional A1-contractible total space.
We address the following question: Determine the affine cones over smooth projective varieties which admit an action of a connected algebraic group different from the standard C*-action by scalar matrices and its inverse action. We show in particular that the affine cones over anticanonically embedded smooth del Pezzo surfaces of degree at least 4 possess such an action. A question by Flenner and the third author whether this is also true for cubic surfaces, occurs to be out of reach for our methods. Nevertheless, we provide a general geometric criterion that could be helpful also in this case…
For a smooth manifold $X$ equipped with a volume form, let $\dL$ be the Lie algebra of volume preserving smooth vector fields on $X$. A. Lichnerowicz proved that the abelianization of $\dL$ is a finite-dimensional vector space, and that its dimension depends only on the topology of $X$. In this paper we provide analogous results for some classical examples of non-singular complex affine algebraic varieties that admit a nowhere-zero algebraic form of top degree (which plays the role of a volume form).
T.Kishimoto raised the problem to classify all compactifications of contractible affine 3-folds into smooth Fano 3-folds with second Betti number two and classified such compactifications whose log canonical divisors are not nef. In this article, we show that there are 14 deformation equivalence classes of smooth Fano 3-folds which can admit structures of such compactifications whose log canonical divisors are trivial. We also construct an example of such compactifications with trivial log canonical divisors for each of all the 14 classes.
We investigate flexibility of affine varieties with an action of a linear algebraic group. Flexibility of a smooth affine variety with only constant invertible functions and a locally transitive action of a reductive group is proved. Also we show that a normal affine complexity-zero horospherical variety is flexible.
In this article, we give a proof for a geometric presentation theorem for any irreducible scheme $X$ smooth projective over a discrete valuation ring $R$. As a consequence, for any reductive $R$-group scheme $\mathbf{G}$, we prove that any generically trivial principal $\mathbf{G}$-bundle over $X$ glued to a principal $\mathbf{G}_U$-bundle over the affine line $\mathbb{A}^1_U$ for a semilocal affine scheme $U$.
We prove that the bracket width of the simple Lie algebra of vector fields $\rm{Vec}(C)$ of a smooth irreducible affine curve $C$ with a trivial tangent sheaf is at most three. In addition, if $C$ is a plane curve, the bracket width of $\rm{Vec}(C)$ is at most two and if moreover $C$ has a unique place at infinity, the bracket width of $\rm{Vec}(C)$ is exactly two. We also show that in case $C$ is rational, the width of $\rm{Vec}(C)$ equals one.
We address the following question: When an affine cone over a smooth Fano threefold admits an effective action of the additive group? In this paper we deal with Fano threefolds of index 1 and Picard number 1. Our approach is based on a geometric criterion from our previous paper, which relates the existence of an additive group action on the cone over a smooth projective variety X with the existence of an open polar cylinder in X. Non-trivial families of Fano threefolds carrying a cylinder were found in loc. cit. Here we provide new such examples.
We study quotients of quasi-affine schemes by unipotent groups over fields of characteristic 0. To do this, we introduce a notion of stability which allows us to characterize exactly when a principal bundle quotient exists and, together with a cohomological vanishing criterion, to characterize whether or not the resulting quasi-affine quotient scheme is affine. We completely analyze the case of G_a-invariant hypersurfaces in a linear G_a-representation W; here the above characterizations admit simple geometric and algebraic interpretations. As an application, we produce arbitrary dimensional f…
We prove that any smooth rational projective surface over the field of complex numbers has an open covering consisting of 3 subsets isomorphic to affine planes.
Let G be a complex reductive group. A normal G-variety X is called spherical if a Borel subgroup of G has a dense orbit in X. Of particular interest are spherical varieties which are smooth and affine since they form local models for multiplicity free Hamiltonian K-manifolds, K a maximal compact subgroup of G. In this paper, we classify all smooth affine spherical varieties up to coverings, central tori, and C*-fibrations.
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.
A group G acts infinitely transitively on a set Y if for every positive integer m, its action is m-transitive on Y. Given a real affine algebraic variety Y of dimension greater than or equal to two, we show that, under a mild restriction, if the special automorphism group of Y (the group generated by one-parameter unipotent subgroups) is infinitely transitive on each connected component of the smooth locus of Y, then for any real affine suspension X over Y, the special automorphism group of X is infinitely transitive on each connected component of the smooth locus of X. This generalizes a rece…
This paper considers the family $\mathscr{S}_0$ of smooth affine factorial surfaces of logarithmic Kodaira dimension 0 with trivial units over an algebraically closed field $k$. Our main result (Theorem 4.1) is that the number of isomorphism classes represented in $\mathscr{S}_0$ is at least countably infinite. This contradicts the earlier classification of Gurjar and Miyanishi [5] which asserted that $\mathscr{S}_0$ has at most two elements up to isomorphism when $k=\mathbb{C}$. Thus, the classification of surfaces in $\mathscr{S}_0$ for the field $\mathbb{C}$, long thought to have been settl…
We will prove that the Pierce-Birkhoff Conjecture holds for non-singular two-dimensional affine real algebraic varieties over real closed fields, i.e., if W is such a variety, then every piecewise polynomial function on W can be written as suprema of infima of polynomial functions on W. More precisely, we will give a proof of the so-called Connectedness Conjecture for the coordinate rings of such varieties, which implies the Pierce-Birkhoff Conjecture.
For an affine variety $S$ we consider the ring $AK(S),$ which is the intersection of the rings of constants of all locally-nilpotent derivations of the ring $\Cal {O}(S).$ We show that $AK(S\times\Bbb {C}^n)=AK(S)$ for a smooth affine surface $S$ with $H^2(S,\Bbb {Z})=\{0\}.$
We prove that the moduli space $\mathcal{M}_g$ of smooth curves of genus $g$ is the union of $g-1$ affine open subsets for every $g$ with $2 \le g \le 5$, as predicted by an intriguing conjecture of Eduard Looijenga.
