Harmonic maps and 2-cycles, realizing the Thurston norm

Let be an oriented 3-manifold. We investigate when one of the fibers or a combination of fiber components, , of a harmonic map with Morse-type singularities delivers the Thurston norm of its homology class .

In particular, for a map with connected fibers and any well-positioned oriented surface in the homology class of a fiber, we show that the Thurston number satisfies an inequality

Here the variation is can be expressed in terms of the -invariants of the fiber components, and the twist measures the complexity of the intersection of with a particular set of ``bad" fiber components. This complexity is tightly linked with the optimal ``-height" of , being lifted to the -induced cyclic cover .

Based on these invariants, for any Morse map , we introduce the notion of its twist . We prove that, for a harmonic , if and only if .

     

Hardy space of exact forms on

We show that the Hardy space of divergence-free vector fields on has a divergence-free atomic decomposition, and thus we characterize its dual as a variant of . Using the duality result we prove a ``div-curl" type theorem: for in , is equivalent to a -type norm of , where the supremum is taken over all with This theorem is used to obtain some coercivity results for quadratic forms which arise in the linearization of polyconvex variational integrals studied in nonlinear elasticity. In addition, we introduce Hardy spaces of exact forms on , study their atomic decompositions and dual spaces, and establish ``div-curl" type theorems on .

     

Serre duality for non-commutative -bundles

Let be a smooth scheme of finite type over a field , let be a locally free -bimodule of rank , and let be the non-commutative symmetric algebra generated by . We construct an internal functor, , on the category of graded right -modules. When has rank 2, we prove that is Gorenstein by computing the right derived functors of . When is a smooth projective variety, we prove a version of Serre Duality for using the right derived functors of .

     

Weighted estimates in for Laplace's equation on Lipschitz domains

Let , , be a bounded Lipschitz domain. For Laplace's equation in , we study the Dirichlet and Neumann problems with boundary data in the weighted space , where , is a fixed point on , and denotes the surface measure on . We prove that there exists such that the Dirichlet problem is uniquely solvable if , and the Neumann problem is uniquely solvable if . If is a domain, one may take . The regularity for the Dirichlet problem with data in the weighted Sobolev space is also considered. Finally we establish the weighted estimates with general weights for the Dirichlet and regularity problems.

     

Maximal holonomy of infra-nilmanifolds with -dimensional quaternionic Heisenberg geometry

Let be the quaternionic Heisenberg group of real dimension and let denote the maximal order of the holonomy groups of all infra-nilmanifolds with -geometry. We prove that . As an application, by applying Kim and Parker's result, we obtain that the minimum volume of a -dimensional quaternionic hyperbolic manifold with cusps is at least

     

On the -torsion of elliptic curves and elliptic surfaces in characteristic

We study the extension generated by the -coordinates of the -torsion points of an elliptic curve over a function field of characteristic . If is a non-isotrivial elliptic surface in characteristic with a -torsion section, then for 11$"> our results imply restrictions on the genus, the gonality, and the -rank of the base curve , whereas for such a surface can be constructed over any base curve . We also describe explicitly all occurring in the cases where the surface is rational or or the base curve is rational, elliptic or hyperelliptic.

     

Convergence of double Fourier series and -classes

The double Fourier series of functions of the generalized bounded variation class are shown to be Pringsheim convergent everywhere. In a certain sense, this result cannot be improved. In general, functions of class defined here, have quadrant limits at every point and, for there exist at most countable sets and such that, for and is continuous at . It is shown that the previously studied class contains essentially discontinuous functions unless the sequence satisfies a strong condition.

     

Cut numbers of -manifolds

We investigate the relations between the cut number, and the first Betti number, of -manifolds We prove that the cut number of a ``generic' -manifold is at most This is a rather unexpected result since specific examples of -manifolds with large and are hard to construct. We also prove that for any complex semisimple Lie algebra there exists a -manifold with and Such manifolds can be explicitly constructed.

     

The -module structure of -modules

Let be a regular ring, essentially of finite type over a perfect field . An -module is called a unit -module if it comes equipped with an isomorphism , where denotes the Frobenius map on , and is the associated pullback functor. It is well known that then carries a natural -module structure. In this paper we investigate the relation between the unit -structure and the induced -structure on . In particular, it is shown that if is algebraically closed and is a simple finitely generated unit -module, then it is also simple as a -module. An example showing the necessity of being algebraically closed is also given.

     

The cyclic and simplicial cohomology of

Let be the unital semigroup algebra of . We show that the cyclic cohomology groups vanish when is odd and are one dimensional when is even (). Using Connes' exact sequence, these results are used to show that the simplicial cohomology groups vanish for . The results obtained are extended to unital algebras for some other semigroups of .

     

The flat model structure on

Given a cotorsion pair in an abelian category with enough objects and enough objects, we define two cotorsion pairs in the category of unbounded chain complexes. We see that these two cotorsion pairs are related in a nice way when is hereditary. We then show that both of these induced cotorsion pairs are complete when is the ``flat' cotorsion pair of -modules. This proves the flat cover conjecture for (possibly unbounded) chain complexes and also gives us a new ``flat' model category structure on . In the last section we use the theory of model categories to show that we can define using a flat resolution of and a cotorsion coresolution of .

     

How to make a triangulation of polytopal

We introduce a numerical isomorphism invariant for any triangulation of . Although its definition is purely topological (inspired by the bridge number of knots), reflects the geometric properties of . Specifically, if is polytopal or shellable, then is ``small' in the sense that we obtain a linear upper bound for in the number of tetrahedra of . Conversely, if is ``small', then is ``almost' polytopal, since we show how to transform into a polytopal triangulation by local subdivisions. The minimal number of local subdivisions needed to transform into a polytopal triangulation is at least . Using our previous results [The size of triangulations supporting a given link, Geometry & Topology 5 (2001), 369-398], we obtain a general upper bound for exponential in . We prove here by explicit constructions that there is no general subexponential upper bound for in . Thus, we obtain triangulations that are ``very far' from being polytopal. Our results yield a recognition algorithm for that is conceptually simpler, although somewhat slower, than the famous Rubinstein-Thompson algorithm.

     

Stable and finite Morse index solutions on or on bounded domains with small diffusion

In this paper, we study bounded solutions of on (where and sometimes ) and show that, for most 's, the weakly stable and finite Morse index solutions are quite simple. We then use this to obtain a very good understanding of the stable and bounded Morse index solutions of on with Dirichlet or Neumann boundary conditions for small .

     

Operators on spaces preserving copies of Schreier spaces

It is proved that an operator , compact metrizable, a separable Banach space, for which the -Szlenk index of is greater than or equal to , , is an isomorphism on a subspace of isomorphic to , the Schreier space of order . As a corollary, one obtains that a complemented subspace of with Szlenk index equal to contains a subspace isomorphic to .

     

Monomial bases for -Schur algebras

Using the Beilinson-Lusztig-MacPherson construction of the quantized enveloping algebra of and its associated monomial basis, we investigate -Schur algebras as ``little quantum groups". We give a presentation for and obtain a new basis for the integral -Schur algebra , which consists of certain monomials in the original generators. Finally, when , we interpret the Hecke algebra part of the monomial basis for in terms of Kazhdan-Lusztig basis elements.

     

The Tits boundary of a 2-complex

We investigate the Tits boundary of -complexes that have only a finite number of isometry types of cells. In particular, we show that away from the endpoints, a geodesic segment in the Tits boundary is the ideal boundary of an isometrically embedded Euclidean sector. As applications, we provide sufficient conditions for two points in the Tits boundary to be the endpoints of a geodesic in the -complex and for a group generated by two hyperbolic isometries to contain a free group. We also show that if two -complexes are quasi-isometric, then the cores of their Tits boundaries are bi-Lipschitz.

     

The -invariant on certain surfaces with symmetry groups

The global holomorphic -invariant introduced by Tian is closely related to the existence of Kähler-Einstein metrics. We apply the result of Tian, Yau and Zelditch on polarized Kähler metrics to approximate plurisubharmonic functions and compute the -invariant on for .

     

Strongly self-absorbing -algebras

Say that a separable, unital -algebra is strongly self-absorbing if there exists an isomorphism such that and are approximately unitarily equivalent -homomorphisms. We study this class of algebras, which includes the Cuntz algebras , , the UHF algebras of infinite type, the Jiang-Su algebra and tensor products of with UHF algebras of infinite type. Given a strongly self-absorbing -algebra we characterise when a separable -algebra absorbs tensorially (i.e., is -stable), and prove closure properties for the class of separable -stable -algebras. Finally, we compute the possible -groups and prove a number of classification results which suggest that the examples listed above are the only strongly self-absorbing -algebras.

     

On the mod cohomology of

We study the mod  cohomology of the classifying space of the projective unitary group . We first prove that conjectures due to J.F. Adams and Kono and Yagita (1993) about the structure of the mod  cohomology of the classifying space of connected compact Lie groups hold in the case of . Finally, we prove that the classifying space of the projective unitary group is determined by its mod  cohomology as an unstable algebra over the Steenrod algebra for 3$">, completing previous work by Dwyer, Miller and Wilkerson (1992) and Broto and Viruel (1998) for the cases .

     

regularity of Fourier integral operators with caustics

The caustics of Fourier integral operators are defined as caustics of the corresponding Schwartz kernels (Lagrangian distributions on ). The caustic set of the canonical relation is characterized as the set of points where the rank of the projection is smaller than its maximal value, . We derive the estimates on Fourier integral operators with caustics of corank (such as caustics of type , ). For the values of and outside of a certain neighborhood of the line of duality, , the estimates are proved to be caustics-insensitive.

We apply our results to the analysis of the blow-up of the estimates on the half-wave operator just before the geodesic flow forms caustics.