Tame polynomial automorphisms

Abstract

The group of polynomial automorphisms of the affine n-space is an interesting large group. A slightly simpler group is its subgroup of tame automorphisms. Natural problems about these groups include the existence of normal subgroups, the classification of finite subgroups, the Tits alternative, and the possible dynamical degrees of their elements. One method to investigate these questions is via some actions on some metric spaces, namely the coset complex and the valuation complex, that we introduce in detail. This paper is a survey focusing on the following three cases: dimension 2, dimension 3, and dimension 4 for tame automomorphism preserving a nondegenerate quadratic form.