The growth of valuations on rational function fields in two variables

Given a valuation on the function field , we examine the set of images of nonzero elements of the underlying polynomial ring under this valuation. For an arbitrary field , a Noetherian power series is a map that has Noetherian (i.e., reverse well-ordered) support. Each Noetherian power series induces a natural valuation on . Although the value groups corresponding to such valuations are well-understood, the restrictions of the valuations to underlying polynomial rings have yet to be characterized. Let denote the images under the valuation of all nonzero polynomials of at most degree in the variable . We construct a bound for the growth of with respect to for arbitrary valuations, and then specialize to valuations that arise from Noetherian power series. We provide a sufficient condition for this bound to be tight.