Automorphisms of Affine Spaces describes the latest results concerning several conjectures related to polynomial automorphisms: the Jacobian, real Jacobian, Markus-Yamabe, Linearization and tame generators conjectures. Group actions and dynamical systems play a dominant role. Several contributions are of an expository nature, containing the latest results obtained by the leaders in the field. The book also contains a concise introduction to the subject of invertible polynomial maps which formed the basis of seven lectures given by the editor prior to the main conference. Audience: A good introduction for graduate students and research mathematicians interested in invertible polynomial maps.

The main focus of this volume is on the problem of describing the automorphism groups of affine and projective varieties, a classical subject in algebraic geometry where, in both cases, the automorphism group is often infinite dimensional. The collection covers a wide range of topics and is intended for researchers in the fields of classical algebraic geometry and birational geometry (Cremona groups) as well as affine geometry with an emphasis on algebraic group actions and automorphism groups. It presents original research and surveys and provides a valuable overview of the current state of the art in these topics. Bringing together specialists from projective, birational algebraic geometry and affine and complex algebraic geometry, including Mori theory and algebraic group actions, this book is the result of ensuing talks and discussions from the conference “Groups of Automorphisms in Birational and Affine Geometry” held in October 2012, at the CIRM, Levico Terme, Italy. The talks at the conference highlighted the close connections between the above-mentioned areas and promoted the exchange of knowledge and methods from adjacent fields.

The thesis consists of two parts. The first part is dedicated to transformations of finite-dimensional algebras. It is easy to see that the automorphism group of a finite-dimensional algebra is an affine algebraic group. N.L.~Gordeev and V.L.~Popov proved that any affine algebraic group is isomorphic to the automorphism group of some finite-dimensional algebra. We use a similar approach to prove that any affine algebraic monoid can be obtained as the endomorphisms' monoid of a finite-dimensional algebra. Next, we study the solvability of automorphism groups of commutative Artin algebras. We introduce a criterion of their solvability and apply it to complete intersections and to isolated hypersurface singularities. We also study extremal cases of the introduced criterion. The second part of the thesis is dedicated to the infinite transitivity of special automorphism groups of affine and quasiaffine varieties. This property is equivalent to the flexibility for affine varieties. Firstly, we prove the equivalence of transitivity and infinite transitivity of special automorphism groups over algebraically closed field of arbitrary characteristic. Then we provide the criterion of flexibility for affine cones over projective varieties and apply it to del Pezzo surfaces of degree 4 and 5. Finally, we study flexibility of universal torsors over varieties covered by affine spaces and provide a wide range of families of flexible varieties.