The norm of products of free random variables

Let X _i denote free identically-distributed random variables. This paper investigates how the norm of products behaves as n approaches infinity. In addition, for positive X _i it studies the asymptotic behavior of the norm of where denotes the symmetric product of two positive operators: . It is proved that if EX _i = 1, then is between and c ₂ n for certain constant c ₁ and c ₂. For it is proved that the limit of exists and equals Finally, if π is a cyclic representation of the algebra generated by X _i , and if ξ is a cyclic vector, then for all n. These results are significantly different from analogous results for commuting random variables.     

On the spectrum of lamplighter groups and percolation clusters

Let be a finitely generated group and X its Cayley graph with respect to a finite, symmetric generating set S. Furthermore, let be a finite group and the lamplighter group (wreath product) over with group of “lamps” . We show that the spectral measure (Plancherel measure) of any symmetric “switch–walk–switch” random walk on coincides with the expected spectral measure (integrated density of states) of the random walk with absorbing boundary on the cluster of the group identity for Bernoulli site percolation on X with parameter . The return probabilities of the lamplighter random walk coincide with the expected (annealed) return probabilities on the percolation cluster. In particular, if the clusters of percolation with parameter are almost surely finite then the spectrum of the lamplighter group is pure point. This generalizes results of Grigorchuk and Żuk, resp. Dicks and Schick regarding the case when is infinite cyclic. Analogous results relate bond percolation with another lamplighter random walk. In general, the integrated density of states of site (or bond) percolation with arbitrary parameter is always related with the Plancherel measure of a convolution operator by a signed measure on , where or another suitable group. M. Neuhauser’s research supported by the Marie-Curie Excellence Grant MEXT-CT-2004-517154. The research of W. Woess was partially supported by Austrian Science Fund (FWF) P18703-N18.     

Cyclicity of bicyclic operators and completeness of translates

We study cyclicity of operators on a separable Banach space which admit a bicyclic vector such that the norms of its images under the iterates of the operator satisfy certain growth conditions. A simple consequence of our main result is that a bicyclic unitary operator on a Banach space with separable dual is cyclic. Our results also imply that if is the shift operator acting on the weighted space of sequences , if the weight ω satisfies some regularity conditions and ω(n) = 1 for nonnegative n, then S is cyclic if . On the other hand one can see that S is not cyclic if the series diverges. We show that the question of Herrero whether either S or S* is cyclic on admits a positive answer when the series is convergent. We also prove completeness results for translates in certain Banach spaces of functions on .     

The <Emphasis Type="Italic">ψ</Emphasis>-associate <Emphasis Type="Italic">X</Emphasis><Superscript>#</Superscript> of a flat <Emphasis Type="Italic">X</Emphasis> in PG(<Emphasis Type="Italic">n</Emphasis>, 2)

For a given hypersurface ψ in PG(n, 2), with equation Q(x) = 0, where Q is a polynomial of (reduced) degree d > 1, a definition is given of the ψ-associate X ^# of a flat X in PG(n, 2). The definition involves the fully polarized form of the polynomial Q; in the cubic case d = 3 it reads: X ^# = {z ∈ PG(n, 2) | T(x, y, z) = 0 for all x, y ∈ X}, where T(x, y, z) denotes the alternating trilinear form obtained by completely polarizing Q. Some general results, valid for any degree d and projective dimension n, are first expounded. Thereafter several choices of ψ are visited, but for each choice just a few aspects are highlighted. Despite the partial nature of the survey quite a variety of behaviours of the ψ-associate are uncovered. Many of the choices of ψ which are considered are of cubic hypersurfaces in PG(5, 2). If ψ is the Segre variety it is shown that the 48 planes external to fall into eight pairs of ordered triplets {(P ₁, R ₁, S ₁), (P ₂, R ₂, S ₂)} such that and . Further those lines L of PG(5, 2) which are singular, satisfying that is L ^# = PG(5.2), are in this case shown to form a complete spread of 21 lines. Another result of note arises in the case where ψ is the underlying 35-set of a non-maximal partial spread Σ₅ of five planes in PG(5, 2), where it is shown that one plane is singled out by the property that every line is singular.      

Première valeur propre du laplacien, volume conforme et chirurgies

We define a new differential invariant a compact manifold by , where V _c (M, [g]) is the conformal volume of M for the conformal class [g], and prove that it is uniformly bounded above. The main motivation is that this bound provides a upper bound of the Friedlander-Nadirashvili invariant defined by . The proof relies on the study of the behaviour of when one performs surgeries on M.      

A new family of maximal curves over a finite field

It has been known for a long time that the Deligne–Lusztig curves associated to the algebraic groups of type and defined over the finite field all have the maximum number of -rational points allowed by the Weil “explicit formulas”, and that these curves are -maximal curves over infinitely many algebraic extensions of . Serre showed that an -rational curve which is -covered by an -maximal curve is also -maximal. This has posed the problem of the existence of -maximal curves other than the Deligne–Lusztig curves and their -subcovers, see for instance Garcia (On curves with many rational points over finite fields. In: Finite Fields with Applications to Coding Theory, Cryptography and Related Areas, pp. 152–163. Springer, Berlin, 2002) and Garcia and Stichtenoth (A maximal curve which is not a Galois subcover of the Hermitan curve. Bull. Braz. Math. Soc. (N.S.) 37, 139–152, 2006). In this paper, a positive answer to this problem is obtained. For every q = n ³ with n = p ^r  > 2, p ≥ 2 prime, we give a simple, explicit construction of an -maximal curve that is not -covered by any -maximal Deligne–Lusztig curve. Furthermore, the -automorphism group Aut has size n ³(n ³ + 1)(n ² − 1)(n ² − n + 1). Interestingly, has a very large -automorphism group with respect to its genus . Research supported by the Italian Ministry MURST, Strutture geometriche, combinatoria e loro applicazioni, PRIN 2006–2007.     

Uniform central limit theorems for kernel density estimators

Let be the classical kernel density estimator based on a kernel K and n independent random vectors X _i each distributed according to an absolutely continuous law on . It is shown that the processes , , converge in law in the Banach space , for many interesting classes of functions or sets, some -Donsker, some just -pregaussian. The conditions allow for the classical bandwidths h _n that simultaneously ensure optimal rates of convergence of the kernel density estimator in mean integrated squared error, thus showing that, subject to some natural conditions, kernel density estimators are ‘plug-in’ estimators in the sense of Bickel and Ritov (Ann Statist 31:1033–1053, 2003). Some new results on the uniform central limit theorem for smoothed empirical processes, needed in the proofs, are also included.      

Holomorphic functions on bundles over annuli

We consider a family of holomorphic bundles constructed as follows:from any given , we associate a “multiplicative automorphism” of . Now let be a -invariant Stein Reinhardt domain. Then E _m (D, M) is defined as the flat bundle over the annulus of modulus m > 0, with fiber D, and monodromy . We show that the function theory on E _m (D, M) depends nontrivially on the parameters m, M and D. Our main result is that

On formulas for the index of the circular distributions

A circular distribution is a Galois equivariant map ψ from the roots of unity μ _∞ to an algebraic closure of such that ψ satisfies product conditions, for ϵ ∈ μ _∞ and , and congruence conditions for each prime number l and with (l, s) = 1, modulo primes over l for all , where μ _l and μ _s denote respectively the sets of lth and sth roots of unity. For such ψ, let be the group generated over by and let be , where U _s denotes the global units of . We give formulas for the indices and of and inside the circular numbers P _s and units C _s of Sinnott over . This work was supported by the SRC Program of Korea Science and Engineering Foundation (KOSEF) grant funded by the Korea government (MOST) (No. R11-2007-035-01001-0). This work was supported by the Korea Research Foundation Grant funded by the Korean Government (MOEHRD, Basic Research Promotion Fund) (KRF-2006-312-C00455).     

Plane polynomial automorphisms of fixed multidegree

Let be the group of polynomial automorphisms of the complex affine plane. On one hand, can be endowed with the structure of an infinite dimensional algebraic group (see Shafarevich in Math USSR Izv 18:214–226, 1982) and on the other hand there is a partition of according to the multidegree (see Friedland and Milnor in Ergod Th Dyn Syst 9:67–99, 1989). Let denote the set of automorphisms whose multidegree is equal to d. We prove that is a smooth, locally closed subset of and show some related results. We give some applications to the study of the varieties (resp. ) of automorphisms whose degree is equal to m (resp. is less than or equal to m).     

Reiterated homogenization of monotone parabolic problems

Reiterated homogenization is studied for divergence structure parabolic problems of the form . It is shown that under standard assumptions on the function a(y ₁,y ₂,t,ξ) the sequence of solutions converges weakly in to the solution u of the homogenized problem .      

The Stokes operator in weighted Lq-spaces II: weighted resolvent estimates and maximal Lp-regularity

In this paper we establish a general weighted L ^q -theory of the Stokes operator in the whole space, the half space and a bounded domain for general Muckenhoupt weights . We show weighted L ^q -estimates for the Stokes resolvent system in bounded domains for general Muckenhoupt weights. These weighted resolvent estimates imply not only that the Stokes operator generates a bounded analytic semigroup but even yield the maximal L ^p -regularity of in the respective weighted L ^q -spaces for arbitrary Muckenhoupt weights . This conclusion is archived by combining a recent characterisation of maximal L ^p -regularity by -bounded families due to Weis [Operator-valued Fourier multiplier theorems and maximal L _p -regularity. Preprint (1999)] with the fact that for L ^q -spaces -boundedness is implied by weighted estimates.     

$${\mathcal{C}}_{0}$$ ( X)-algebras,stability and strongly self-absorbing $${\mathcal{C}}^{*}$$ -algebras

We study permanence properties of the classes of stable and so-called -stable -algebras, respectively. More precisely, we show that a (X)-algebra A is stable if all its fibres are, provided that the underlying compact metrizable space X has finite covering dimension or that the Cuntz semigroup of A is almost unperforated (a condition which is automatically satisfied for -algebras absorbing the Jiang–Su algebra tensorially). Furthermore, we prove that if is a K ₁-injective strongly self-absorbing -algebra, then A absorbs tensorially if and only if all its fibres do, again provided that X is finite-dimensional. This latter statement generalizes results of Blanchard and Kirchberg. We also show that the condition on the dimension of X cannot be dropped. Along the way, we obtain a useful characterization of when a -algebra with weakly unperforated Cuntz semigroup is stable, which allows us to show that stability passes to extensions of -absorbing -algebras. Research supported by: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (through the SFB 478), by the EU-Network Quantum Spaces - Noncommutative Geometry (Contract No. HPRN-CT-2002-00280), and by the Center for Advanced Studies in Mathematics at Ben-Gurion University     

On the Number of Topological Types Occurring in a Parameterized Family of Arrangements

Let be an o-minimal structure over ℝ, a closed definable set, and

Fibred multilinks and singularities $${f \overline g}$$

In this article we extend Milnor’s fibration theorem to the case of functions of the form with f, g holomorphic, defined on a complex analytic (possibly singular) germ (X, 0). We further refine this fibration theorem by looking not only at the link of , but also at its multi-link structure, which is more subtle. We mostly focus on the case when X has complex dimension two. Our main result (Theorem 4.4) gives in this case the equivalence of the following three statements:

On a problem of K. Mahler: Diophantine approximation and Cantor sets

Let K denote the middle third Cantor set and . Given a real, positive function ψ let denote the set of real numbers x in the unit interval for which there exist infinitely many such that |x − p/q| < ψ(q). The analogue of the Hausdorff measure version of the Duffin–Schaeffer conjecture is established for . One of the consequences of this is that there exist very well approximable numbers, other than Liouville numbers, in K—an assertion attributed to K. Mahler. Explicit examples of irrational numbers satisfying Mahler’s assertion are also given. Dedicated to Maurice Dodson on his retirement—finally!     

Orbifold index and equivariant <Emphasis Type="Italic">K</Emphasis>-homology

Let G be countable group and M be a proper cocompact even-dimensional G-manifold with orbifold quotient . Let D be a G-invariant Dirac operator on M. It induces an equivariant K-homology class and an orbifold Dirac operator on . Composing the assembly map with the homomorphism given by the representation of the maximal group C ^*-algebra induced from the trivial representation of G we define index . In the second section of the paper we show that index = index([D]) and obtain explicit formulas for this integer. In the third section we review the decomposition of in terms of the contributions of fixed point sets of finite cyclic subgroups of G obtained by W. Lück. In particular, the class [D] decomposes in this way. In the last section we derive an explicit formula for the contribution to [D] associated to a finite cyclic subgroup of G.     

The Birman–Craggs–Johnson homomorphism and abelian cycles in the Torelli group

In the 1970s, Birman–Craggs–Johnson (BCJ) (Trans AMS 237: 283–309, 1978; Trans AMS 261(1):423–422, 1980) used Rochlin’s invariant for homology 3-spheres to construct a remarkable surjective homomorphism , where is the Torelli group and B ₃ is a certain -vector space of Boolean (square-free) polynomials. By pulling back cohomology classes and evaluating them on abelian cycles, we construct dimensions worth of nontrivial elements of which cannot be detected rationally. These classes in fact restrict to nontrivial classes in the cohomology of the subgroup generated by Dehn twists about separating curves. We also use the “Casson–Morita algebra” and Morita’s integral lift of the BCJ map restricted to to give the same lower bound on . The first author is partially supported by NSF grant DMS-0606882 and was also supported in part by NSF grant DMS-0504208 and by a VIGRE postdoc under NSF grant 9983660 to Cornell University. The second author is supported in part by NSF grant DMS-0244542.     

An interpolation theorem for proper holomorphic embeddings

Given a Stein manifold x of dimension n > 1, a discrete sequence , and a discrete sequence where , there exists a proper holomorphic embedding satisfying f(a _j ) = b _j for every j = 1,2,... Forstnerič and Prezelj supported by grants P1-0291 and J1-6173, Republic of Slovenia. Kutzschebauch supported by Schweizerische National fonds grant 200021-107477/1. Ivarsson supported by The Wenner-Gren Foundations.     

Tits topology and fundamental groups of compact Riemannian manifolds

Let M be a compact Riemannian manifold without conjugate points. We generalize the Tits topology on the ideal boundary of the universal covering space of M. Then we show that if π₁(M) is amenable and is compact with respect to the Tits topology, then M is flat. This work was supported by Grant No.R01-2006-000-10047-0(2006) from the Basic Research Program of the Korea Science & Engineering Foundation.