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We construct algebraic families of smooth affine $\mathbb{A}^1$-contractible varieties of every dimension $n\geq 4$ over fields of characteristic zero which are non-isomorphic to affine spaces and potential counterexamples to the Zariski Cancellation Problem. We further prove that these families of varieties are also counter examples to the generalized Cancellation problem., Comment: Comments are welcome

We study deformation spaces using multi-centered dilatations. Interpolating Fulton simple deformation space and Rost asymmetric double deformation space, we introduce (asymmetric) deformation spaces attached to chains of immersions of arbitrary lengths. One of the main results of this paper is the so-called panelization isomorphism, producing several isomorphisms between the deformation space of length $n$ and deformation spaces of smaller lengths. Combining these isomorphisms, we get a polyptych $\mathscr{P}(n)$ of deformation spaces. Having these panelization isomorphisms allows to compute the strata -- certain restrictions of special interests -- of deformation spaces.

We give constructions of completions of the affine $3$-space into total spaces of del Pezzo fibrations of every degree other than $7$ over the projective line. We show in particular that every del Pezzo surface other than $\mathbb{P}^{2}$ blown-up in one or two points can appear as a closed fiber of a del Pezzo fibration $\pi:X\to\mathbb{P}^{1}$ whose total space $X$ is a $\mathbb{Q}$-factorial threefold with terminal singularities which contains $\mathbb{A}^{3}$ as the complement of the union of a closed fiber of $\pi$ and a prime divisor $B_{h}$ horizontal for $\pi$. For such completions, we also give a complete description of integral curves that can appear as general fibers of the induced morphism $\bar{\pi}:B_{h}\to\mathbb{P}^{1}$., Comment: 16 pages

We show that a $3$-dimensional Pham-Brieskorn hypersurface $\{ X_0^{a_0} + X_1^{a_1} + X_2^{a_2} + X_3^{a_3}=0\}$ in $\mathbb{A}^4$ such that $\min\{a_0, a_1, a_2, a_3 \} \geq 2$ and at most one element $i$ of $\{0,1,2,3\}$ satisfies $a_i = 2$ does not admit a non-trivial action of the additive group $\mathbb{G}_a$., Comment: Significantly shortened proofs of the (2,3,4,12) and (2,3,5,30) cases. Added proof of positive amplitude cases in all dimensions

In this text, we wish to provide the reader with a short guide to recent works on the theory of dilatations in Commutative Algebra and Algebraic Geometry. These works fall naturally into two categories: one emphasises foundational and theoretical aspects and the other applications to existing theories.

We study faithful actions with a dense orbit of abelian unipotent groups on quintic del Pezzo varieties over a field of characteristic zero. Such varieties are forms of linear sections of the Grassmannian of planes in a 5-dimensional vector space. We characterize which smooth forms admit these types of actions and show that in case of existence, the action is unique up to equivalence by automorphisms. We also give a similar classification for mildly singular quintic del Pezzo threefolds and surfaces.

We propose a framework to give a precise meaning to the intuitive notion of "family of real forms of a variety parametrised by a variety" and study some fundamental properties of this notion. As an illustration, for any $n \geq 1$, we construct the first example of a quasi-projective real surface whose mutually non-isomorphic real forms admit a moduli of dimension at least $n$, parametrised by the real points of an affine $n$-space. Expanding on these constructions, we can give quasi-projective real varieties of any dimension whose algebraic moduli of the non-isomorphic real forms has arbitrarily positive dimension., Comment: The article has a new title, since it now also discusses the concepts of real functors, relative real forms and the tautological complete relative form. This gives a clearer meaning to the notion of "family of real forms of a variety parametrised by a variety". The example of the quasi-projective surface with non-isomorphic real forms parametrised by affine n-space is recast in this new framework

We initiate a study of punctured tubular neighborhoods and homotopy theory at infinity in motivic settings. We use the six functors formalism to give an intrinsic definition of the stable motivic homotopy type at infinity of an algebraic variety. Our main computational tools include cdh-descent for normal crossing divisors, Euler classes, Gysin maps, and homotopy purity. Under $\ell$-adic realization, the motive at infinity recovers a formula for vanishing cycles due to Rapoport-Zink; similar results hold for Steenbrink's limiting Hodge structures and Wildeshaus' boundary motives. Under the topological Betti realization, the stable motivic homotopy type at infinity of an algebraic variety recovers the singular complex at infinity of the corresponding topological space. We coin the notion of homotopically smooth morphisms with respect to a motivic $\infty$-category and use it to show a generalization to virtual vector bundles of Morel-Voevodsky's purity theorem, which yields an escalated form of Atiyah duality with compact support. Further, we study a quadratic refinement of intersection degrees, taking values in motivic cohomotopy groups. For relative surfaces, we show the stable motivic homotopy type at infinity witnesses a quadratic version of Mumford's plumbing construction for smooth complex algebraic surfaces. Our construction and computation of stable motivic links of Du Val singularities on normal surfaces is expressed entirely in terms of Dynkin diagrams. In characteristic p>0, this improves Artin's analysis on Du Val singularities through \'etale local fundamental groups. The main results in the paper are also valid for $\ell$-adic sheaves, mixed Hodge modules, and more generally motivic $\infty$-categories., Comment: This paper subsumed arXiv:2104.03222.Final version. Comments welcome !

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 classes of such fibrations up to composition by automorphisms at the source and target is finite if and only if the self-intersection number of $B$ in $X$ is less than or equal to 6.

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., Comment: 22 pages; Strengthened some results; Comments welcome!

In this paper, we initiate a study of motivic homotopy theory at infinity. We use the six functor formalism to give an intrinsic definition of the stable motivic homotopy type at infinity of an algebraic variety. Our main computational tools include cdh-descent for normal crossing divisors, Euler classes, Gysin maps, and homotopy purity. Under $\ell$-adic realization, the motive at infinity recovers a formula for vanishing cycles due to Rapoport-Zink; similar results hold for Steenbrink's limiting Hodge structures and Wildeshaus' boundary motives. Under the topological Betti realization, the stable motivic homotopy type at infinity of an algebraic variety recovers the singular complex at infinity of the corresponding analytic space. We coin the notion of homotopically smooth morphisms with respect to a motivic $\infty$-category and use it to show a generalization to virtual vector bundles of Morel-Voevodsky's purity theorem, which yields an escalated form of Atiyah duality with compact support. Further we study a quadratic refinement of intersection degrees taking values in motivic cohomotopy groups. For relative surfaces, we show the stable motivic homotopy type at infinity witnesses a quadratic version of Mumford's plumbing construction for smooth complex algebraic surfaces. Our main results are also valid for $\ell$-adic sheaves, mixed Hodge modules, and more generally motivic $\infty$-categories., Comment: Draft, comments are welcome

The notion of commutator width of a group, defined as the smallest number of commutators needed to represent each element of the derived group as their product, has been extensively studied over the past decades. In particular, in 1992 Barge and Ghys discovered the first example of a simple group of commutator width greater than one among groups of diffeomorphisms of smooth manifolds. We consider a parallel notion of bracket width of a Lie algebra and present the first examples of simple Lie algebras of bracket width greater than one. They are found among the algebras of polynomial vector fields on smooth affine varieties., Comment: 20 pages, new co-author and substantially revised version of the previous one

Affine ind-varieties are infinite dimensional generalizations of algebraic varieties which appear naturally in many different contexts, in particular in the study of automorphism groups of affine spaces. In this article we introduce and develop the basic algebraic theory of topologically integrable derivations of complete topological rings. We establish a bijective algebro-geometric correspondence between additive group actions on affine ind-varieties and topologically integrable derivations of their coordinate pro-rings which extends the classical fruitful correspondence between additive group actions on affine varieties and locally nilpotent derivations of their coordinate rings.

We describe a method to construct completions of affine spaces into total spaces of $\mathbb{Q}$-factorial terminal Mori fiber spaces over the projective line. As an application we provide families of examples with non-rational, birationally rigid and non-stably rational general fibers., Comment: 24 pages

We study toric G-solid Fano threefolds that have at most terminal singularities, where G is an algebraic subgroup of the normalizer of a maximal torus in their automorphism groups., Comment: 30 pages

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 establish basic properties of a sheaf of graded algebras canonically associated to every relative affine scheme $f : X \rightarrow S$ endowed with an action of the additive group scheme $\mathbb{G}_{ a,S}$ over a base scheme or algebraic space $S$, which we call the (relative) Rees algebra of the $\mathbb{G}_{ a,S}$-action. We illustrate these properties on several examples which played important roles in the development of the algebraic theory of locally nilpotent derivations and give some applications to the construction of families of affine threefolds with Ga-actions.

We give an algebro-geometric classification of smooth real affine algebraic surfaces endowed with an effective action of the real algebraic circle group $\mathbb{S}^1$ up to equivariant isomorphisms. As an application, we show that every compact differentiable surface endowed with an action of the circle $S^1$ admits a unique smooth rational real quasi-projective model up to $\mathbb{S}^1$-equivariant birational diffeomorphism.

Every deformed Koras-Russell threefold of the first kind $Y = \left\{ x^{n}z=y^{m}-t^{r} + xh(x,y,t)\right\}$ in $\mathbb{A}^{4}$ is the algebraic quotient of proper Zariski locally trivial $\mathbb{G}_a$-action on $\mathrm{SL}_2 \times \mathbb{A}^1$.

We provide a complete description of normal affine algebraic varieties over the real numbers endowed with an effective action of the real circle, that is, the real form of the complex multiplicative group whose real locus consists of the unitary circle in the real plane. Our approach builds on the geometrico-combinatorial description of normal affine varieties with effective actions of split tori in terms of proper polyhedral divisors on semiprojective varieties due to Altmann and Hausen, Comment: 16 pages

We construct smooth rational real algebraic varieties of every dimension $\ge$ 4 which admit infinitely many pairwise non-isomorphic real forms.

We study smooth rational closed embeddings of the real affine line into the real affine plane, that is algebraic rational maps from the real affine line to the real affine plane which induce smooth closed embeddings of the real euclidean line into the real euclidean plane. We consider these up to equivalence under the group of birational automorphisms of the real affine plane which are diffeomorphisms of its real locus. We show that in contrast with the situation in the categories of smooth manifolds with smooth maps and of real algebraic varieties with regular maps where there is only one equivalence class up to isomorphism, there are non-equivalent smooth rational closed embeddings up to such birational diffeomorphisms.

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.

Motivated by the general question of existence of open A1-cylinders in higher dimensional pro-jective varieties, we consider the case of Mori Fiber Spaces of relative dimension three, whose general closed fibers are isomorphic to the quintic del Pezzo threefold V5 , the smooth Fano threefold of index two and degree five. We show that the total spaces of these Mori Fiber Spaces always contain relative A2-cylinders, and we characterize those admitting relative A3-cylinders in terms of the existence of certain special lines in their generic fibers.

We study a wide class of affine varieties, which we call affine Fano varieties. By analogy with birationally super-rigid Fano varieties, we define super-rigidity for affine Fano varieties, and provide many examples and non-examples of super-rigid affine Fano varieties., Comment: 21 pages

An algebraic variety is called $\mathbb{A}^{1}$-cylindrical if it contains an $\mathbb{A}^{1}$-cylinder, i.e. a Zariski open subset of the form $Z\times\mathbb{A}^{1}$ for some algebraic variety Z. We show that the generic fiber of a family $f:X\rightarrow S$ of normal $\mathbb{A}^{1}$-cylindrical varieties becomes $\mathbb{A}^{1}$-cylindrical after a finite extension of the base. Our second result is a criterion for existence of an $\mathbb{A}^{1}$-cylinder in X which we derive from a careful inspection of a relative Minimal Model Program ran from a suitable smooth relative projective model of X over S.

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

Motivated by the study of the structure of algebraic actions the additive group on affine threefolds X, we consider a special class of such varieties whose algebraic quotient morphisms X $\rightarrow$ X//Ga restrict to principal homogeneous bundles over the complement of a smooth point of the quotient. We establish basic general properties of these varieties and construct families of examples illustrating their rich geometry. In particular, we give a complete classification of a natural subclass consisting of threefolds X endowed with proper Ga-actions, whose algebraic quotient morphisms $\pi$ : X $\rightarrow$ X//Ga are surjective with only isolated degenerate fibers, all isomorphic to the affine plane A 2 when equipped with their reduced structures.

We give a criterion for a flat fibration with affine plane fibers over a smooth scheme defined over a field of characteristic zero to be a Zariski locally trivial $\mathbb{A}^2$-bundle. An application is a positive answer to a version of the Dolgachev-Weisfeiler Conjecture for such fibrations: a flat fibration $\mathbb{A}^m$ $\rightarrow$ $\mathbb{A}^n$ with all fibers isomorphic to $\mathbb{A}^2$ is the trivial $\mathbb{A}^2$-bundle.

A smooth complex variety satisfies the Generalized Jacobian Conjecture if all its \'etale endomorphisms are proper. We study the conjecture for $\mathbb{Q}$-acyclic surfaces of negative Kodaira dimension. We show that $G$-equivariant counterexamples for infinite group $G$ exist if and only if $G=\mathbb{C}^*$ and we classify them relating them to Belyi-Shabat polynomials. Taking universal covers we get rational simply connected $\mathbb{C}^*$-surfaces of negative Kodaira dimension which admit non-proper $\mathbb{C}^*$-equivariant \'etale endomorphisms. We prove also that for every integers $r\geq 1, k\geq 2$ the $\mathbb{Q}$-acyclic rational hyperplane $u(1+u^{r}v)=w^k$, which has fundamental group $\mathbb{Z}_k$ and negative Kodaira dimension, admits families of non-proper \'etale endomorphisms of arbitrarily high dimension and degree, whose members remain different after dividing by the action of the automorphism group by left and right composition., Comment: 26 pages, 1 figure

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 exist exotic closed embeddings of the affine line in the complement of Q. We also determine an explicit set of birational endomorphisms of the plane whose restrictions generates the automorphism group of the complement of Q over a field of arbitrary characteristic.

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 show that a del Pezzo fibration $\pi$ : V $\rightarrow$ W of degre d contains a vertical open cylinder, that is, an open subset whose intersection with the generic fiber of $\pi$ is isomorphic to $Z\times\mathbb{A}_{K}^{1}$ for some quasi-projective variety Z defined over the function field K of W , if and only if d $\ge$ 5 and $\pi$ : V $\rightarrow$ W admits a rational section. We also construct twisted cylinders in total spaces of threefold del Pezzo fibrations $\pi$ : V $\rightarrow$ P 1 of degree d $\le$ 4.

We provide families of affine threefolds which are contractible in the unstable $\mathbb A^1$-homotopy category of Morel-Voevodsky and pairwise non-isomorphic, thus answering a question of A. Asok and B. Doran. As a particular case, we show that the Koras-Russell threefolds of the first kind are contractible, extending results of M. Hoyois, A. Krishna and P. A. Ostvaer., Comment: 10 pages, comments are welcome

We describe a method to construct hypersurfaces of the complex affine $n$-space with isomorphic $\mathbb{C}^*$-cylinders. Among these hypersurfaces, we find new explicit counterexamples to the Laurent Cancellation Problem, i.e. hypersurfaces that are non isomorphic, although their $\mathbb{C}^*$-cylinders are isomorphic as abstract algebraic varieties. We also provide examples of non isomorphic varieties $X$ and $Y$ with isomorphic cartesian squares $X\times X$ and $Y\times Y$.

In Dubouloz and Mangolte (Fake real planes: exotic affine algebraic models of $\mathbb{R}^{2}$, arXiv:1507.01574, 2015) we define and partially classify fake real planes, that is, minimal complex surfaces with conjugation whose real locus is diffeomorphic to the euclidean real plane $\mathbb{R}^{2}$. Classification results are given up to biregular isomorphisms and up to birational diffeomorphisms. In this note, we describe in an elementary way numerous examples of fake real planes and we exhibit examples of such planes of every Kodaira dimension $\kappa\in \{-\infty,0,1,2\}$ which are birationally diffeomorphic to $\mathbb{R}^{2}$.

We study certain pencils of del Pezzo surfaces generated by a smooth del Pezzo surface S of degree less or equal to 3 anti-canonically embedded into a weighted projective space P and an appropriate multiple of a hyperplane H. Our main observation is that every minimal model program relative to the morphism lifting such pencil on a suitable resolution of its indeterminacies preserves the open subset P H \^a A^3. As an application, we obtain projective completions of A^3 into del Pezzo fibrations over P^1 of every degree less or equal to 4. We also obtain completions of A^3 into Mori conic bundles, whose restrictions to A^3 are twisted C*-fibrations over A^2 .

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 study real rational models of the euclidean plane $\mathbb{R}^2$ up to isomorphisms and up to birational diffeomorphisms. The analogous study in the compact case, that is the classification of real rational models of the real projective plane $\mathbb{R}\mathbb{P}^2$ is well known: up to birational diffeomorphisms, there is only one model. A fake real plane is a nonsingular affine surface defined over the reals with homologically trivial complex locus and real locus diffeomorphic to $\mathbb{R}^2$ but which is not isomorphic to the real affine plane. We prove that fake planes exist by giving many examples and we tackle the question: does there exist fake planes whose real locus is not birationally diffeomorphic to the real affine plane?

We address a variant of Zariski Cancellation Problem, asking whether two varieties which become isomorphic after taking their product with an algebraic torus are isomorphic themselves. Such cancellation property is easily checked for curves, is known to hold for smooth varieties of log-general type by virtue of a result of Iitaka-Fujita, and more generally for varieties which are not dominantly covered by images of the punctured affine line. We show in contrast that cancellation fails in general in every dimension bigger or equal to two.

We characterize rational actions of the additive group on algebraic varieties defined over a field of characteristic zero in terms of a suitable integrability property of their associated velocity vector fields. This extends the classical correspondence between regular actions of the additive group on affine algebraic varieties and the so-called locally nilpotent derivations of their coordinate rings. This leads in particular to a complete characterization of regular additive group actions on semi-affine varieties in terms of their associated vector fields. Among other applications, we review properties of the rational counter-part of the Makar-Limanov invariant for affine varieties and describe the structure of rational homogeneous additive group actions on toric varieties.

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 $\mathbb{A}^{1}$-fibration can also be obtained from a relative Minimal Model Program applied to a relative smooth projective model of the family.

Let (S, B) be the log pair associated with a projective completion of a smooth quasi-projective surface V . Under the assumption that the boundary B is irreducible, we obtain an algorithm to factorize any automorphism of V into a sequence of simple birational links. This factorization lies in the framework of the log Mori theory, with the property that all the blow-ups and contractions involved in the process occur on the boundary. When the completion S is smooth, we obtain a description of the automorphisms of V which is reminiscent of a presentation by generators and relations except that the "generators" are no longer automorphisms. They are instead isomorphisms between different models of V preserving certain rational fibrations. This description enables one to define normal forms of automorphisms and leads in particular to a natural generalization of the usual notions of affine and Jonquieres automorphisms of the affine plane. When V is affine, we show however that except for a finite family of surfaces including the affine plane, the group generated by these affine and Jonquieres automorphisms, which we call the tame group of V, is a proper subgroup of Aut(V).

The Russell cubic is a smooth contractible affine complex threefold which is not isomorphic to affine three-space. In previous articles, we discussed the structure of the automorphism group of this variety. Here we review some consequences of this structure and generalize some results to other hypersurfaces which arise as deformations of Koras-Russell threefolds., Comment: To appear in Proceedings of the GABAG2012 conference

We construct a smooth rational affine surface S with finite automorphism group but with the property that the group of automorphisms of the cylinder SxA^2 acts infinitely transitively on the complement of a closed subset of codimension at least two. Such a surface S is in particular rigid but not stably rigid with respect to the Makar-Limanov invariant.