Generic Caldero-Chapoton functions with coefficients and applications to surface cluster algebras

We realize Derksen-Weyman-Zelevinsky's mutations of representations as densely-defined regular maps on representation spaces, and study the generic values of Caldero-Chapoton functions with coefficients, giving, for instance, a sufficient combinatorial condition for their linear independence. For a quiver with potential $(Q,S)$, we show that if $k$ is a vertex not incident to any oriented 2-cycle, then every generically $\tau$-reduced irreducible component $Z$ of any affine variety of (decorated) representations has a dense open subset $U$ on which Derksen-Weyman-Zelevinsky's mutation of representations $\mu_k$ can be defined consistently as a regular map to an affine variety of (decorated) representations of the Jacobian algebra of the mutated QP $\mu_k(Q,S)$. Our techniques involve only basic linear algebra and elementary algebraic geometry, and do not require to assume Jacobi-finiteness. Thus, the paper yields a new and more general proof of the mutation invariance of generic Caldero-Chapoton functions, generalizing and providing a new natural geometric perspective on results of Derksen-Weyman-Zelevinsky and Plamondon. (For Jacobi-finite non-degenerate quivers with potential, this invariance was shown by Plamondon using the machinery of Ginzburg dg-algebras and Hom-finite generalized cluster categories.) We apply our results, together with results of Mills, Muller and Qin, to prove that for any choice of geometric coefficient systems, not necessarily of full rank, the cluster algebra associated to a possibly punctured surface with at least two marked points on the boundary has the generic Caldero-Chapoton functions as a basis over the Laurent polynomial ring of coefficients.