Rigidity and height bounds for certain post-critically finite endomorphisms of projective space

Abstract: The holomorphic endomorphism f of projective space is called post-critically finite (PCF) if the forward image of the critical locus, under iteration of f, has algebraic support (i.e., is a finite union of hypersurfaces). In the case of dimension 1, a deep result of Thurston implies that there are no algebraic families of PCF morphisms, other than a well-understood exceptional class known as the flexible Lattes maps. This note proves a corresponding result in arbitrary dimension, for a certain subclass of morphism. Specifically, we restrict attention to morphisms f of degree at least two, with a totally invariant hyperplane H, such that the restriction of f to H is the dth power map in some coordinates. This condition defines a subvariety of the space of coordinate-free endomorphisms of projective space (of a given dimension). We prove that there are no families of PCF maps in this space, and derive several related arithmetic results.