A characterization of varieties of algebras of proper central exponent equal to two

Abstract: Let $F$ be a field of characteristic zero and let $ \mathcal V$ be a variety of associative $F$-algebras. In \cite{regev2016} Regev introduced a numerical sequence measuring the growth of the proper central polynomials of a generating algebra of $ \mathcal V$. Such sequence $c_n^\delta(\mathcal V), \, n \ge 1,$ is called the sequence of proper central polynomials of $ \mathcal V$ and in \cite{GZ2018}, \cite{GZ2019} the authors computed its exponential growth. This is an invariant of the variety. They also showed that $c_n^\delta(\mathcal V)$ either grows exponentially or is polynomially bounded. The purpose of this paper is to characterize the varieties of associative algebras whose exponential growth of $c_n^\delta(\mathcal V)$ is greater than two. As a consequence, we find a characterization of the varieties whose corresponding exponential growth is equal to two.