The degeneration of a family of rational surface automorphisms

Abstract

We consider a one-dimensional family of rational surfaces with automorphisms. In a degeneration of this family, the limiting map is the identity map on a special fiber. We check that the map on the total space of the family has indeterminacy in the special fiber. However, we show that after blowing-up at an indeterminate curve, there is an induced birational map on the exceptional divisor over the indeterminate curve. Moreover, we show that this map has dynamical degree 16.