Wild automorphisms and compound isotriviality

Source abstract

Abstract Inspired by the model theory of difference fields in characteristic zero, a class of automorphisms of an algebraic variety, here called compound fundamental isotrivial, is introduced. These are algebraic dynamical systems that are built up via a finite sequence of equivariant fibrations from (possibly nonautonomous) algebraic dynamics that trivialise after base extension over themselves. Every wild automorphism of an abelian variety is compound fundamental isotrivial. Conversely, it is shown that the only irreducible projective varieties admitting a wild automorphism that is compound fundamental isotrivial are the abelian varieties. That is, the wild automorphism conjecture of Reichstein, Rogalski, and Zhang is here proven for compound fundamental isotrivial dynamics. Along the way, a counterexample to the naive generalisation of the conjecture to the nonautonomous setting of $\sigma$-varieties is provided.