Sign of Permutation Induced by Nagata Automorphism over Finite Fields

Abstract

This paper proves that the Nagata automorphism over a finite field can be mimicked by a tame automorphism which is a composition of four elementary automorphisms. By investigating the sign of the permutations induced by the above elementary automorphisms, one can see that if the Nagata automorphism is defined over a prime field of characteristic two, the Nagata automorphism induces an odd permutation, and otherwise, the Nagata automorphism induces an even permutation.