We construct explicit embeddings of generalized Danielewski surfaves in affine spaces. The equations defining these embeddings are obtained from the 2x2 minors of a matrix attached to a labelled rooted tree. Then we describe more precisely those surfaces with a trivial Makar-Limanov invariant.
A special Danielewski surface is an affine surface which is the total space of a principal $(\mathbb{C},+)$-bundle over an affine line with a multiple origin. Using a fiber product trick introduced by Danielewski, it is known that cylinders over two such surfaces are always isomorphic provided that both bases have the same number of origins. The goal of this note is to give an explicit method to find isomorphisms between cylinders over special Danielewski surfaces. The method is based on the construction of appropriate locally nilpotent derivations.
In this note we show that if the automorphism group of a normal affine surface $S$ is isomorphic to the automorphism group of a Danielewski surface, then $S$ is isomorphic to a Danielewski surface.
The cancellation problem asks if two complex algebraic varieties X and Y of the same dimension such that X\times\mathbb{C} and Y\times\mathbb{C} are isomorphic are isomorphic. Iitaka and Fujita established that the answer is positive for a large class of varieties of any dimension. In 1989, Danielewski constructed a famous counter-example using smooth affine surfaces with additive group actions. His construction was further generalized by Fieseler and Wilkens to describe a larger class of affine surfaces. Here we construct higher dimensional analogues of these surfaces. We study algebraic acti…
L. Makar-Limanov computed the automorphisms groups of surfaces in $\mathbb{C}^{3}$ defined by the equations $x^{n}z-P(y)=0$, where $n\geq1$ and $P(y)$ is a nonzero polynomial. Similar results have been obtained by A. Crachiola for surfaces defined by the equations $x^{n}z-y^{2}-h(x)y=0$, where $n\geq2$ and $h(0)\neq0$, defined over an arbitrary base field. Here we consider the more general surfaces defined by the equations $x^{n}z-Q(x,y)=0$, where $n\geq2$ and $Q(x,y)$ is a polynomial with coefficients in an arbitrary base field $k$. Among these surfaces, we characterize the ones which are Dan…
We study a class of normal affine surfaces with additive group actions which contains in particular the Danielewski surfaces in $\ba^{3}$ given by the equations $x^{n}z=P(y)$, where $P$ is a nonconstant polynomial with simple roots. We call them Danielewski-Fieseler Surfaces. We reinterpret a construction of Fieseler \cite{Fie94} to show that these surfaces appear as the total spaces of certain torsors under a line bundle over a curve with an $r$-fold point. We classify Danielewski-Fieseler surfaces through labelled rooted trees attached to such a surface in a canonical way. Finally, we charac…
We study a two-dimensional family of affine surfaces which are counter-examples to the Cancellation Problem. We describe the Makar-Limanov invariant of these surfaces, determine their isomorphism classes and characterize the automorphisms of these surfaces.
In this note we prove that if $S$ is an affine non-toric $\mathbb{G}_m$-surface of hyperbolic type that admits a $\mathbb{G}_a$-action and $X$ is an affine irreducible variety such that $Aut(X)$ is isomorphic to $Aut(S)$ as an abstract group, then $X$ is a $\mathbb{G}_m$-surface of hyperbolic type. Further, we show that a smooth Danielewski surface $Dp = \{ xy = p(z) \} \subset \mathbb{A}^3$, where $p$ has no multiple roots, is determined by its automorphism group seen as an ind-group in the category of affine irreducible varieties.
The affine cancellation problem, which asks whether complex affine varieties with isomorphic cylinders are themselves isomorphic, has a positive solution for two dimensional varieties whose coordinate rings are unique factorization domains, in particular for the affine plane, but counterexamples are found within normal surfaces Danielewski surfaces and factorial threefolds of logarithmic Kodaira dimension equal to 1. The latter are therefore remote from the affine three-space, the first unknown case where the base of one cylinder is an affine space. Locally trivial Ga-actions play a significan…
Let $X$ and $X'$ be affine algebraic varieties over a field $\mathbb{k}$. The celebrated Zariski Cancellation Problem asks as to when the existence of an isomorphism $X\times\mathbb{A}^n\cong X'\times\mathbb{A}^n$ implies $X\cong X'$. In Part I of this paper (arXiv:1610.01805) we provided a criterion for cancellation in the case where $X$ is a normal affine surface admitting an $\mathbb{A}^1$-fibration $X\to B$ over a smooth affine curve $B$. If $X$ does not admit such an $\mathbb{A}^1$-fibration then the cancellation by the affine line is known to hold for $X$ by a result of Bandman and Makar…
The celebrated Zariski Cancellation Problem asks as to when the existence of an isomorphism $X\times\mathbb{A}^n\cong X'\times\mathbb{A}^n$ for (affine) algebraic varieties $X$ and $X'$ implies that $X\cong X'$. In this paper we provide a criterion for cancellation by the affine line (that is, $n=1$) in the case where $X$ is a normal affine surface admitting an $\mathbb{A}^1$-fibration $X\to B$ over a smooth affine curve $B$. If $X$ does not admit such an $\mathbb{A}^1$-fibration then the cancellation by the affine line is known to hold for $X$ by a result of Bandman and Makar-Limanov. It occu…
We classify affine varieties with an action of a connected, reductive algebraic group such that the group is isomorphic to an open orbit in the variety. This is accomplished by associating a set of one-parameter subgroups of the group to the variety, characterizing such sets, and proving that sets of this type correspond to affine embeddings of the group. Applications of this classification to the existence of morphisms are then given.
Let $Y$ be the underlying variety of a connected affine algebraic group. We prove that two embeddings of the affine line $\mathbb{C}$ into $Y$ are the same up to an automorphism of $Y$ provided that $Y$ is not isomorphic to a product of a torus $(\mathbb{C}^\ast)^k$ and one of the three varieties $\mathbb{C}^3$, $\operatorname{SL}_2$, and $\operatorname{PSL}_2$.
In 1973 V.L.Popov classified affine SL(2)-embeddings. He proved that a locally transitive SL(2)-action on a normal affine three-dimensional variety X is uniquely determined by a pair (p/q, r), where 0<p/q<=1 is an uncancelled fraction and r is a positive integer. Here r is the order of the stabilizer of a generic point. In this paper we show that the variety X is toric, i.e. admits a locally transitive action of an algebraic torus, if and only if r is divisible by q-p. To do this we prove the following necessary and sufficient condition for an affine G/H-embedding to be toric. Suppose X is a n…
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.
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.
We study equivariant affine embeddings of homogeneous spaces and their equivariant automorphisms. An example of a quasiaffine, but not affine, homogeneous space with finitely many equivariant automorphisms is presented. We prove the solvability of any connected group of equivariant automorphisms for an affine embedding with a fixed point and finitely many orbits. This is applied to studying the orbital decomposition for algebraic monoids and canonical embeddings of quasiaffine homogeneous spaces, i.e., those affine embeddings associated with the coordinate algebras of homogeneous spaces, provi…
In this paper, we report several large classes of affine varieties (over an arbitrary field $K$ of characteristic 0) with the following property: each variety in these classes has an isomorphic copy such that the corresponding isomorphism cannot be extended to an automorphism of the ambient affine space $K^n$. This implies, in particular, that each of these varieties has at least two inequivalent embeddings in $K^n$. The following application of our results seems interesting: we show that lines in $K^2$ are distinguished among irreducible algebraic retracts by the property of having a unique e…
While the general question of whether every closed embedding of an affine line in affine $3$-space can be rectified remains open, there have been several partial results proved by several different means. We provide a new approach, namely constructing (strongly) residual coordinates, that allows us to give new proofs of all known partial results, and in particular generalize the results of Bhatwadekar-Roy and Kuroda on embeddings of the form $(t^n,t^m,t^l+t)$.
In this paper, we address the following two general problems: given two algebraic varieties in ${\bf C}^n$, find out whether or not they are (1) isomorphic; (2) equivalent under an automorphism of ${\bf C}^n$. Although a complete solution of either of these problems is out of the question at this time, we give here some handy and useful invariants of isomorphic as well as of equivalent varieties. Furthermore, and more importantly, we give a universal procedure for obtaining all possible algebraic varieties isomorphic to a given one, and use it to construct numerous examples of isomorphic, but …
Let G be a reductive algebraic group and H a closed subgroup of G. An affine embedding of the homogeneous space G/H is an affine G-variety with an open G-orbit isomorphic to G/H. We start with some basic properties of affine embeddings and consider the cases, where the theory is well-developed: toric varieties, normal SL(2)-embeddings, S-varieties, and algebraic monoids. We discuss connections between the theory of affine embeddings and Hilbert's 14th Problem via a theorem of Grosshans. We characterize affine homogeneous spaces G/H such that any affine embedding of G/H contains a finite number…
The Koras-Russell threefold is the hypersurface X of the complex affine four-space defined by the equation x^2y+z^2+t^3+x=0. It is well-known that X is smooth contractible and rational but that it is not algebraically isomorphic to affine three-space. The main result of this article is to show that there exists another hypersurface Y of the affine four-space, which is isomorphic to X as an abstract variety, but such that there exists no algebraic automorphism of the ambient space which restricts to an isomorphism between X and Y. In other words, the two hypersurfaces are inequivalent. The proo…
We prove that up to automorphisms a line admits a unique embedding into the regular part of of a simplicial toric variety of dimension n>=4 over an algebraically closed field of characteristic zero which is smooth in codimension 2.
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 $X$.
Let G be a reductive algebraic group and let H be a reductive subgroup of G. We describe all pairs (G,H) such that for any affine G-variety X with a dense G-orbit isomorphic to G/H the number of G-orbits in X is finite. The maximal number of parameters in families of G-orbits in all affine embeddings of G/H is computed.
Let $π_1(C)$ be the fundamental group of a smooth irreducible affine curve $C$ over an algebraically closed field of positive characteristic. It is shown that given an embedding problem for $π_1(C)$ there exist an open index $p$ normal subgroup of $π_1(C)$ so that the embedding problem restricted to this group has a solution. In particular, $π_1(C)$ is "almost $ω$-free".
We show that every irreducible, simply connected curve on a toric affine surface X over the field of complex numbers is an orbit closure of a multiplicative group action on X. It follows that up to the action of the automorphism group Aut(X) there are only finitely many non-equivalent embeddings of the affine line in X. A similar description is given for simply connected curves in the quotients of the affine plane by small finite linear groups. We provide also an analog of the Jung-van der Kulk theorem for affine toric surfaces, and apply this to study actions of algebraic groups on such surfa…
We survey recent results on open embeddings of the affine space $\mathbb{C}^n$ into a complete algebraic variety $X$ such that the action of the vector group $\mathbb{G}_a^n$ on $\mathbb{C}^n$ by translations extends to an action of $\mathbb{G}_a^n$ on $X$. We begin with Hassett-Tschinkel correspondence describing equivariant embeddings of $\mathbb{C}^n$ into projective spaces and give its generalization for embeddings into projective hypersurfaces. Further sections deal with embeddings into flag varieties and their degenerations, complete toric varieties, and Fano varieties of certain types.
In this paper we continue the study of good re-embeddings of affine K-algebras started in [KLR]. The idea is to use special linear projections to find isomorphisms between a given affine K-algebra K[X]/I, where X=(x_1,...,x_n), and K-algebras having fewer generators. These projections are induced by particular tuples of indeterminates Z and by term orderings $σ$ which realize Z as leading terms of a tuple F of polynomials in I. In order to efficiently find such tuples, we provide two major new tools: an algorithm which reduces the check whether a given tuple F is Z-separating to an LP feasibil…
Affinely closed homogeneous spaces G/H, i.e., affine homogeneous spaces that admit only the trivial affine embedding, are characterized for any affine algebraic group G. As a corollary, a description of affine G-algebras with finitely generated invariant subalgebras is obtained.
The affine Grassmannian of $SL_n$ admits an embedding into the Sato Grassmannian, which further admits a Plücker embedding into the projectivization of Fermion Fock space. Kreiman, Lakshmibai, Magyar, and Weyman describe the linear part of the ideal defining this embedding in terms of certain elements of the dual of Fock space called "shuffles", and they conjecture that these elements together with the Plücker relations suffice to cut out the affine Grassmannian. We give a proof of this conjecture in two steps: first we reinterpret the shuffles equations in terms of Frobenius twists of symmetr…
Braverman, Finkelberg, and Nakajima define Kac-Moody affine Grassmannian slices as Coulomb branches of $3d$ $\mathcal{N}=4$ quiver gauge theories and prove that their Coulomb branch construction agrees with the usual loop group definition in finite ADE types. The Coulomb branch construction has good algebraic properties, but its geometry is hard to understand in general. In finite types, an essential geometric feature is that slices embed into one another. We show that these embeddings are compatible with the fundamental monopole operators (FMOs), remarkable regular functions arising from the …
We prove that every smooth affine variety of dimension $d$ embeds into every simple algebraic group of dimension at least $2d+2$. We do this by establishing the existence of embeddings of smooth affine varieties into the total space of certain principal bundles. For the latter we employ and build upon parametric transversality results for flexible affine varieties due to Kaliman. By adapting a Chow-group-based argument due to Bloch, Murthy, and Szpiro, we show that our result is optimal up to a possible improvement of the bound to $2d+1$. In order to study the limits of our embedding method, w…
We determine a formula for the dimension of a family of affine Springer fibers associated to a symmetric space arising from the block diagonal embedding $\mathrm{GL}_n\times\mathrm{GL}_n\hookrightarrow\mathrm{GL}_{2n}$ . As an application, we determine the dimension of affine Springer fibers attached to certain unitary symmetric spaces.
Let $C$ be a smooth irreducible affine curve $C$ over an algebraically closed field of positive characteristic and let $π_1(C)$ be its fundamental group. We study various embedding problems for $π_1(C)$ and its subgroups.
We construct irreducible complex projective varieties such that the Lyubeznik numbers of their affine cones depend on the choices of projective embeddings. The main ingredient is the recent work of Reichelt-Saito-Walther, where the Lyubeznik numbers are reinterpreted using perverse sheaves and reducible projective varieties with dependent Lyubeznik numbers are constructed.
We analyze the question of which motivic homotopy types admit smooth schemes as representatives. We show that given a pointed smooth affine scheme $X$ and an embedding into affine space, the affine deformation space of the embedding gives a model for the ${\mathbb P}^1$ suspension of $X$; we also analyze a host of variations on this observation. Our approach yields many examples of ${\mathbb A}^1$-$(n-1)$-connected smooth affine $2n$-folds and strictly quasi-affine ${\mathbb A}^1$-contractible smooth schemes.
The Zariski theorem says that for every hypersurface in a complex projective (resp. affine) space of dimension at least 3 and for every generic plane in the projective (resp. affine) space the natural embedding generates an isomorphism of the fundamental groups of the complements to the hypersurface in the plane and in the space. If a family of hypersurfaces depends algebraically on parameters then it is not true in general that there exists a plane such that the natural embedding generates isomorphisms of the fundamental groups of the complements to each hypersurface from this family in the p…
We consider two linear reductive algebraic groups $ G $ and $ G' $ over $ C $. Take a finite dimensional rational representation $ W $ of $ G \times G' $. Let $ Y = W // G := Spec C[W]^G $ and $ X = W // G' := \Spec C[W]^{G'} $ be the affine quotients. The quotient space $ X $ (respectively $ Y $) naturally inherits the action of $ G $ (respectively $ G' $). In this note, we study the interrelation between the orbit structures of $ X / G $ and $ Y / G' $. In a good situation, we can embed $ Y / G' $ into $ X / G $, and the embedding map preserves important properties such as the closure relati…
Given an affine algebra $R=P/I$, where $P=K[x_1,\dots,x_n]$ is a polynomial ring over a field $K$ and $I$ is an ideal in $P$, we study re-embeddings of the affine scheme ${\rm Spec}(R)$, i.e., presentations $R \cong P'/I'$ such that $P'$ is a polynomial ring in fewer indeterminates. To find such re-embeddings, we use polynomials $f_i$ in the ideal $I$ which are coherently separating in the sense that they are of the form $f_i= z_i - g_i$ with an indeterminate $z_i$ which divides neither a term in the support of $g_i$ nor in the support of $f_j$ for $j\ne i$. The possible numbers of such sets o…
We consider a certain class of Schubert varieties of the affine Grassmannian of type A. By embedding a Schubert variety into a finite-dimensional Grassmannian, we construct an explicit basis of sections of the basic line bundle by restricting certain Plücker co-ordinates. As a consequence, we write an explicit set of generators for the degree-one part of the ideal of the finite-dimensional embedding. This in turn gives a set of generators for the degree-one part of the ideal defining the affine Grassmannian inside the infinite Grassmannian which we conjecture to be a complete set of ideal gene…
We prove a conjecture of Kuznetsov stating that the equivariant K-theory of affine Laumon spaces is the universal Verma module for the quantum affine algebra U_q(gl_n^). We do so by reinterpreting the action of the quantum toroidal algebra U_q(gl_n^^) on the K-theory from [14] in terms of the shuffle algebra studied in [12], which constructs an embedding of U_q(gl_n^) into U_q(gl_n^^)
Let V be a normal affine surface which admits a C*- and a C+-action. In this note we show that in many cases V can be embedded as a principal Zariski open subset into a hypersurface of a weighted projective space. In particular, we recover a result of D. Daigle and P. Russell.
Let $G$ be a connected reductive group. We find a necessary and sufficient condition for a quasiaffine homogeneous space of $G$ to be embeddable into an irreducible $G$-module. In addition, for an affine homogeneous space we find a criterium for a closed embedding to exist
Let $X$ be a rational homogeneous space and let $QH^*(X)_{loc}^\times$ be the group of invertible elements in the small quantum cohomology ring of $X$ localised in the quantum parameters. We generalise results of arXiv:math/0609796 and realise explicitly the map $π_1({\rm Aut}(X))\to QH^*(X)_{loc}^\times$ described in arXiv:dg-ga/9511011. We even prove that this map is an embedding and realise it in the equivariant quantum cohomology ring $QH^*_T(X)_{loc}^\times$. We give explicit formulas for the product by these elements. The proof relies on a generalisation, to a quotient of the equivariant…
The goal of this paper is to clarify the connection between certain structures from the theory of totally nonnegative Grassmannians, quiver Grassmannians for cyclic quivers and the theory of local models of Shimura varieties. More precisely, we generalize the construction from our previous paper relating the combinatorics and geometry of quiver Grassmanians to that of the totally nonnegative Grassmannians. The varieties we are interested in serve as realizations of local models of Shimura varieties. We exploit quiver representation techniques to study the quiver Grassmannians of interest and, …