On degrees of birational mappings

Abstract

We prove that the degrees of the iterates ${\rm deg}(f^n)$ of a birational map satisfy $\liminf({\rm deg}(f^n))<+\infty$ if and only if the sequence ${\rm deg}(f^n)$ is bounded, and that the growth of ${\rm deg}(f^n)$ can not be arbitrarily slow, unless ${\rm deg}(f^n)$ is bounded.