A refinement of Stark's conjecture over complex cubic number fields

We study the first-order zero case of Stark's conjecture over a complex cubic number field F. In that case, the conjecture predicts the absolute value of a complex unit in an abelian extension of F. We present a refinement of Stark's conjecture by proposing a formula (up to a root of unity) for the unit itself instead of its absolute value.     

The relative degree and large complete minors in infinite graphs

Finite graphs of large minimum degree have large complete (topological) minors. We propose a new and very natural notion, the relative degree of an end, which makes it possible to extend this fact to locally finite graphs and to graphs with countably many ends. We conjecture the extension to be true for all infinite graphs.     

Twisted Zeta-Functions and Abelian Stark Conjectures

We present a new version “at s=1” of Rubin's refined, higher order Stark conjecture at s=0 for an abelian extension of number fields (K. Rubin, 1996, Ann. Inst. Fourier46, No. 1, 33-62). The key idea is to introduce a formalism of “twisted zeta-functions” to replace the L-functions underlying Rubin's conjecture. This achieves certain simplifications, notably eliminating Gauss sums in a natural way from our version at s=1. It also facilitates some further developments, including an important motivation of the present paper: the formulation of an analogous p-adic conjecture to be presented in a sequel.     

Square classes of totally positive units

In this article, we investigate some conditions for a real cyclic extension K over Q to satisfy the property that every totally positive unit of K is a square. As an application, we give a partial answer to Taussky's conjecture. We then extend our result to real abelian extensions of certain type.     

Generalized Kac-Moody algebras, automorphic forms and Conway's group I

The moonshine properties imply that the twisted denominator identities coming from the action of the monster group on the monster algebra define modular forms. In this paper, we motivate the conjecture that the action of an extension of Conway's simple group Co₁ on the fake monster algebra gives rise to automorphic forms of singular weight on Grassmannians. We prove the conjecture for elements with square-free level and nontrivial fixpoint lattice.     

Concerning the shape of a geometric lattice

A well-known conjecture states that the Whitney numbers of the second kind of a geometric lattice (simple matroid) are logarithmically concave. We show this conjecture to be equivalent to proving an upper bound on the number of new copoints in the free erection of the associated simple matroid M. A bound on the number of these new copoints is given in terms of the copoints and colines of M. Also, the points-lines-planes conjecture is shown to be equivalent to a problem concerning the number of subgraphs of a certain bipartite graph whose vertices are the points and lines of a geometric lattice.     

Explicit Heegner points: Kolyvagin's conjecture and non-trivial elements in the Shafarevich-Tate group

Kolyvagin used Heegner points to associate a system of cohomology classes to an elliptic curve over Q and conjectured that the system contains a non-trivial class. His conjecture has profound implications on the structure of Selmer groups. We provide new computational and theoretical evidence for Kolyvagin's conjecture. More precisely, we explicitly approximate Heegner points over ring class fields and use these points to give evidence for the conjecture for specific elliptic curves of rank two. We explain how Kolyvagin's conjecture implies that if the analytic rank of an elliptic curve is at least two then the Zp-corank of the corresponding Selmer group is at least two as well. We also use explicitly computed Heegner points to produce non-trivial classes in the Shafarevich-Tate group.     

Transitive sets in Euclidean Ramsey theory

A finite set X in some Euclidean space Rn is called Ramsey if for any k there is a d such that whenever Rd is k-coloured it contains a monochromatic set congruent to X. This notion was introduced by Erd?s, Graham, Montgomery, Rothschild, Spencer and Straus, who asked if a set is Ramsey if and only if it is spherical, meaning that it lies on the surface of a sphere. This question (made into a conjecture by Graham) has dominated subsequent work in Euclidean Ramsey theory.In this paper we introduce a new conjecture regarding which sets are Ramsey; this is the first ever ‘rival’ conjecture to the conjecture above. Calling a finite set transitive if its symmetry group acts transitively—in other words, if all points of the set look the same—our conjecture is that the Ramsey sets are precisely the transitive sets, together with their subsets. One appealing feature of this conjecture is that it reduces (in one direction) to a purely combinatorial statement. We give this statement as well as several other related conjectures. We also prove the first non-trivial cases of the statement.Curiously, it is far from obvious that our new conjecture is genuinely different from the old. We show that they are indeed different by proving that not every spherical set embeds in a transitive set. This result may be of independent interest.     

Poncelet’s theorem and billiard knots

Let D be any elliptic right cylinder. We prove that every type of knot can be realized as the trajectory of a ball in D. This proves a conjecture of Lamm and gives a new proof of a conjecture of Jones and Przytycki. We use Jacobi??s proof of Poncelet??s theorem by means of elliptic functions.     

A proof of the rooted tree alternative conjecture

Bonato and Tardif [A. Bonato, C. Tardif, Mutually embeddable graphs and the tree alternative conjecture, J. Combinatorial Theory, Series B 96 (2006), 874-880] conjectured that the number of isomorphism classes of trees mutually embeddable with a given tree T is either 1 or infinite. We prove the analogue of their conjecture for rooted trees. We also make some progress towards the original conjecture for locally finite trees and state some new conjectures.     

Combings of semidirect products and 3-manifold groups

IfG is a finitely generated group that is abelian or word-hyperbolic andH is an asynchronously combable group then every split extension ofG byH is asynchronously combable. The fundamental group of any compact 3-manifold that satisfies the geometrization conjecture is asynchronously combable. Every split extension of a word-hyperbolic group by an asynchronously automatic group is asynchronously automatic.     

Topology of character varieties and representations of quivers

In Hausel et al. (2008) [10] we presented a conjecture generalizing the Cauchy formula for Macdonald polynomial. This conjecture encodes the mixed Hodge polynomials of the character varieties of representations of the fundamental group of a punctured Riemann surface of genus g. We proved several results which support this conjecture. Here we announce new results which are consequences of those in Hausel et al. (2008) [10].     

Pure O-Sequences and Matroid h-Vectors

We study Stanley’s long-standing conjecture that the h-vectors of matroid simplicial complexes are pure O-sequences. Our method consists of a new and more abstract approach, which shifts the focus from working on constructing suitable artinian level monomial ideals, as often done in the past, to the study of properties of pure O-sequences. We propose a conjecture on pure O-sequences and settle it in small socle degrees. This allows us to prove Stanley’s conjecture for all matroids of rank 3. At the end of the paper, using our method, we discuss a first possible approach to Stanley’s conjecture in full generality. Our technical work on pure O-sequences also uses very recent results of the third author and collaborators.     

Strong openness of multiplier ideal sheaves and optimal <Emphasis Type="Italic">L</Emphasis><Superscript>2</Superscript> extension

In this paper, we reveal that our solution of Demailly’s strong openness conjecture implies a matrix version of the conjecture; our solutions of two conjectures of Demailly-Kollár and Jonsson-Mustat? implies the truth of twisted versions of the strong openness conjecture; our optimal L ² extension implies Berndtsson’s positivity of vector bundles associated to holomorphic fibrations over a unit disc.     

A remark on the fundamental lemma of Jacquet

We conjecture a generalization of the fundamental lemma of Jacquet in the context of ${\mathit{GL}}_n$ over a quadratic extension. We provide a heuristic argument for our expectation and prove our conjecture for ${\mathit{GL}}_2$. To cite this article: O. Offen, C. R. Acad. Sci. Paris, Ser. I 342 (2006).     

The proof of the Lane-Emden conjecture in four space dimensions

We partially solve a well-known conjecture about the nonexistence of positive entire solutions to elliptic systems of Lane-Emden type when the pair of exponents lies below the critical Sobolev hyperbola. Up to now, the conjecture had been proved for radial solutions, or in n?3 space dimensions, or in certain subregions below the critical hyperbola for n?4. We here establish the conjecture in four space dimensions and we obtain a new region of nonexistence for n?5. Our proof is based on a delicate combination involving Rellich-Pohozaev type identities, a comparison property between components via the maximum principle, Sobolev and interpolation inequalities on Sn−1, and feedback and measure arguments. Such Liouville-type nonexistence results have many applications in the study of nonvariational elliptic systems.     

A proof of Wahl's conjecture in the symplectic case

Let X denote a flag variety of type A or type C. We construct a canonical Frobenius splitting of X × X which vanishes with maximal multiplicity along the diagonal. This way we verify a conjecture by Lakshmibai, Mehta and Parameswaran [4] in type C, and obtain a new proof in type A. In particular, we obtain a proof of Wahl's conjecture in type C, and a new proof in type A. We also present certain cohomological consequences.     

Nakai's conjecture for varieties smoothed by normalization

The notion of D-simplicity is used to give a short proof that varieties whose normalization is smooth satisfy Ishibashi's extension of Nakai's conjecture to arbitrary characteristic. This gives a new proof of Nakai's conjecture for curves and Stanley-Reisner rings.

     

A note on Barnette’s conjecture

A well-known conjecture of Barnette states that every 3-connected cubic bipartite planar graph has a Hamiltonian cycle, which is equivalent to the statement that every 3-connected even plane triangulation admits a 2-tree coloring, meaning that the vertices of the graph have a 2-coloring such that each color class induces a tree. In this paper we present a new approach to Barnette’s conjecture by using 2-tree coloring.A Barnette triangulation is a 3-connected even plane triangulation, and a B-graph is a smallest Barnette triangulation without a 2-tree coloring. A configuration is reducible if it cannot be a configuration of a B-graph. We prove that certain configurations are reducible. We also define extendable, non-extendable and compatible graphs; and discuss their connection with Barnette’s conjecture.     

Coefficients for the Farrell-Jones Conjecture

We introduce the Farrell-Jones Conjecture with coefficients in an additive category with G-action. This is a variant of the Farrell-Jones Conjecture about the algebraic K- or L-theory of a group ring RG. It allows to treat twisted group rings and crossed product rings. The conjecture with coefficients is stronger than the original conjecture but it has better inheritance properties. Since known proofs using controlled algebra carry over to the set-up with coefficients we obtain new results about the original Farrell-Jones Conjecture. The conjecture with coefficients implies the fibered version of the Farrell-Jones Conjecture.