On the degree growth of iterated birational maps

Abstract

We construct a family of birational maps acting on two dimensional projective varieties, for which the growth of the degrees of the iterates is cubic. It is known that this growth can be bounded, linear, quadratic or exponential for such maps acting on two dimensional compact K\"ahler varieties. The example we construct goes beyond this limitation, thanks to the presence of a singularity on the variety where the maps act. We provide all details of the calculations.