A degree bound for strongly nilpotent polynomial automorphisms

Abstract

Let $k$ be a field of characteristic zero. Let $F = X + H$ be a polynomial mapping from $k^n \to k^n$, where $X$ is the identity mapping and $H$ has only degree two terms and higher. We say that the Jacobian matrix $JH$ of $H$ is strongly nilpotent with index $p$ if for all $X^{(1)},\ldots,X^{(p)} \in k^n$ we have \begin{align*} JH(X^{(1)})\ldots JH (X^{(p)}) = 0. \end{align*} Every $F$ of this form is a polynomial automorphism, i.e. there is a second polynomial mapping $F^{-1}$ such that $F \circ F^{-1} = F^{-1} \circ F = X$. We prove that the degree of the inverse $F^{-1}$ satisfies \begin{align*} deg(F^{-1}) \leq deg(F)^p, \end{align*} improving in the strongly nilpotent case on the well known degree bound $deg(F^{-1}) \leq deg(F)^n$ for general polynomial automorphisms.