Pythagoras numbers of fields

A field of characteristic is said to have finite Pythagoras number if there exists an integer such that each nonzero sum of squares in can be written as a sum of squares, in which case the Pythagoras number of is defined to be the least such integer. As a consequence of Pfister's results on the level of fields, of a nonformally real field is always of the form or , and all integers of such type can be realized as Pythagoras numbers of nonformally real fields. Prestel showed that values of the form , , and can always be realized as Pythagoras numbers of formally real fields. We will show that in fact to every integer there exists a formally real field with . As a refinement, we will show that if and are integers such that , then there exists a uniquely ordered field with and (resp. ), where (resp. ) denotes the supremum of the dimensions of anisotropic forms over which are torsion in the Witt ring of (resp. which are indefinite with respect to each ordering on ).

     

A bilinear approach to the restriction and Kakeya conjectures

Bilinear restriction estimates have appeared in work of Bourgain, Klainerman, and Machedon. In this paper we develop the theory of these estimates (together with the analogues for Kakeya estimates). As a consequence we improve the spherical restriction theorem of Wolff from to , and also obtain a sharp spherical restriction theorem for .

     

Homoclinic points of algebraic -actions

Let be an action of by continuous automorphisms of a compact abelian group . A point in is called homoclinic for if as . We study the set of homoclinic points for , which is a subgroup of . If is expansive, then is at most countable. Our main results are that if is expansive, then (1) is nontrivial if and only if has positive entropy and (2) is nontrivial and dense in if and only if has completely positive entropy. In many important cases is generated by a fundamental homoclinic point which can be computed explicitly using Fourier analysis. Homoclinic points for expansive actions must decay to zero exponentially fast, and we use this to establish strong specification properties for such actions. This provides an extensive class of examples of -actions to which Ruelle's thermodynamic formalism applies. The paper concludes with a series of examples which highlight the crucial role of expansiveness in our main results.

     

The homotopy theory of fusion systems

We define and characterize a class of -complete spaces which have many of the same properties as the -completions of classifying spaces of finite groups. For example, each such has a Sylow subgroup , maps for a -group are described via homomorphisms , and is isomorphic to a certain ring of ``stable elements' in . These spaces arise as the ``classifying spaces' of certain algebraic objects which we call ``-local finite groups'. Such an object consists of a system of fusion data in , as formalized by L. Puig, extended by some extra information carried in a category which allows rigidification of the fusion data.

     

The enumerative geometry of surfaces and modular forms

Let be a surface, and let be a holomorphic curve in representing a primitive homology class. We count the number of curves of geometric genus with nodes passing through generic points in in the linear system for any and satisfying .

When , this coincides with the enumerative problem studied by Yau and Zaslow who obtained a conjectural generating function for the numbers. Recently, Göttsche has generalized their conjecture to arbitrary in terms of quasi-modular forms. We prove these formulas using Gromov-Witten invariants for families, a degeneration argument, and an obstruction bundle computation. Our methods also apply to blown up at 9 points where we show that the ordinary Gromov-Witten invariants of genus constrained to points are also given in terms of quasi-modular forms.     

Fractional isoperimetric inequalities and subgroup distortion

It is shown that there exist infinitely many non-integers such that the Dehn function of some finitely presented group is . Explicit examples of such groups are constructed. For each rational number pairs of finitely presented groups are constructed so that the distortion of in is .

     

Compatibility of local and global Langlands correspondences

We prove the compatibility of local and global Langlands correspondences for , which was proved up to semisimplification in M. Harris and R. Taylor, The Geometry and Cohomology of Some Simple Shimura Varieties, Ann. of Math. Studies 151, Princeton Univ. Press, Princeton-Oxford, 2001. More precisely, for the -dimensional -adic representation of the Galois group of an imaginary CM-field attached to a conjugate self-dual regular algebraic cuspidal automorphic representation of , which is square integrable at some finite place, we show that Frobenius semisimplification of the restriction of to the decomposition group of a place of not dividing corresponds to by the local Langlands correspondence. If is square integrable for some finite place we deduce that is irreducible. We also obtain conditional results in the case .

     

The threshold for random -SAT is

Let be a random -CNF formula formed by selecting uniformly and independently out of all possible -clauses on variables. It is well known that if , then is unsatisfiable with probability that tends to 1 as . We prove that if , where , then is satisfiable with probability that tends to 1 as .

Our technique, in fact, yields an explicit lower bound for the random -SAT threshold for every . For our bounds improve all previously known such bounds.

     

The essentially tame local Langlands correspondence, I

Let be a non-Archimedean local field (of characteristic or ) with finite residue field of characteristic . An irreducible smooth representation of the Weil group of is called essentially tame if its restriction to wild inertia is a sum of characters. The set of isomorphism classes of irreducible, essentially tame representations of dimension is denoted . The Langlands correspondence induces a bijection of with a certain set of irreducible supercuspidal representations of . We consider the set of isomorphism classes of certain pairs , called ``admissible', consisting of a tamely ramified field extension of degree and a quasicharacter of . There is an obvious bijection of with . Using the classification of supercuspidal representations and tame lifting, we construct directly a canonical bijection of with , generalizing and simplifying a construction of Howe (1977). Together, these maps give a canonical bijection of with . We show that one obtains the Langlands correspondence by composing the map with a permutation of of the form , where is a tamely ramified character of depending on . This answers a question of Moy (1986). We calculate the character in the case where is totally ramified of odd degree.

     

Two geometric character formulas for reductive Lie groups

In this paper we prove two formulas for the characters of representations of reductive groups. Both express the character of a representation in terms of the same geometric data attached to . When specialized to the case of a compact Lie group, one of them reduces to Kirillov's character formula in the compact case, and the other, to an application of the Atiyah-Bott fixed point formula to the Borel-Weil realization of the representation .

     

On a correspondence between cuspidal representations of

Let be an irreducible, automorphic, self-dual, cuspidal representation of , where is the adele ring of a number field . Assume that has a pole at and that . Given a nontrivial character of , we construct a nontrivial space of genuine and globally -generic cusp forms on -the metaplectic cover of . is invariant under right translations, and it contains all irreducible, automorphic, cuspidal (genuine) and -generic representations of , which lift (``functorially, with respect to ") to . We also present a local counterpart. Let be an irreducible, self-dual, supercuspidal representation of , where is a -adic field. Assume that has a pole at . Given a nontrivial character of , we construct an irreducible, supercuspidal (genuine) -generic representation of , such that has a pole at , and we prove that is the unique representation of satisfying these properties.

     

Independence of of monodromy groups

Let be a smooth curve over a finite field of characteristic , let be a number field, and let be an -compatible system of lisse sheaves on the curve . For each place of not lying over , the -component of the system is a lisse -sheaf on , whose associated arithmetic monodromy group is an algebraic group over the local field . We use Serre's theory of Frobenius tori and Lafforgue's proof of Deligne's conjecture to show that when the -compatible system is semisimple and pure of some integer weight, the isomorphism type of the identity component of these monodromy groups is ``independent of '. More precisely, after replacing by a finite extension, there exists a connected split reductive algebraic group over the number field such that for every place of not lying over , the identity component of the arithmetic monodromy group of is isomorphic to the group with coefficients extended to the local field .

     

Cyclotomic integers and finite geometry

We obtain an upper bound for the absolute value of cyclotomic integers which has strong implications on several combinatorial structures including (relative) difference sets, quasiregular projective planes, planar functions, and group invariant weighing matrices. Our results are of broader applicability than all previously known nonexistence theorems for these combinatorial objects. We will show that the exponent of an abelian group containing a -difference set cannot exceed where is the number of odd prime divisors of and is a number-theoretic parameter whose order of magnitude usually is the squarefree part of . One of the consequences is that for any finite set of primes there is a constant such that for any abelian group containing a Hadamard difference set whose order is a product of powers of primes in . Furthermore, we are able to verify Ryser's conjecture for most parameter series of known difference sets. This includes a striking progress towards the circulant Hadamard matrix conjecture. A computer search shows that there is no Barker sequence of length with . Finally, we obtain new necessary conditions for the existence of quasiregular projective planes and group invariant weighing matrices including asymptotic exponent bounds for cases which previously had been completely intractable.

     

Computing roadmaps of semi-algebraic sets on a variety

We consider a semi-algebraic set defined by polynomials in variables which is contained in an algebraic variety . The variety is assumed to have real dimension the polynomial and the polynomials defining have degree at most . We present an algorithm which constructs a roadmap on . The complexity of this algorithm is . We also present an algorithm which, given a point of defined by polynomials of degree at most , constructs a path joining this point to the roadmap. The complexity of this algorithm is These algorithms easily yield an algorithm which, given two points of defined by polynomials of degree at most , decides whether or not these two points of lie in the same semi-algebraically connected component of and if they do computes a semi-algebraic path in connecting the two points.

     

Une compactification des champs classifiant les chtoucas de Drinfeld

One knows that the notion of Harder-Narasimhan's canonical polygon allows one to write the stacks classifying Drinfeld's shtukas of rank at least as inductive limits of open substacks of finite type. When there is no level structure, we present here a smooth modular compactification of each such open substack, generalizing Drinfeld's construction for rank .

Résumé. On sait qu'en rang au moins , la notion de polygone canonique de Harder-Narasimhan permet d'écrire les champs classifiant les chtoucas de Drinfeld comme des réunions filtrantes d'ouverts de type fini. Quand il n'y a pas de structure de niveau, on présente ici une compactification modulaire lisse de chacun de ces ouverts, généralisant celles de Drinfeld en rang .

     

The McKay correspondence as an equivalence of derived categories

Let be a finite group of automorphisms of a nonsingular three-dimensional complex variety , whose canonical bundle is locally trivial as a -sheaf. We prove that the Hilbert scheme parametrising -clusters in is a crepant resolution of and that there is a derived equivalence (Fourier-Mukai transform) between coherent sheaves on and coherent -sheaves on . This identifies the K theory of with the equivariant K theory of , and thus generalises the classical McKay correspondence. Some higher-dimensional extensions are possible.

     

Order -adic field

Let be an algebraically closed field of characteristic the ring of Witt vectors and a complete discrete valuation ring dominating and containing a primitive -th root of unity. Let denote a uniformizing parameter for We study order automorphisms of the formal power series ring which are defined by a series

The set of fixed points of is denoted by and we suppose that they are -rational and that for Let be the minimal semi-stable model of the -adic open disc over in which specializes to distinct smooth points. We study the differential data that can be associated to each irreducible component of the special fibre of Using this data we show that if , then the fixed points are equidistant, and that there are only a finite number of conjugacy classes of order automorphisms in which are not the identity

     

Entire solutions of semilinear elliptic equations in and a conjecture of De Giorgi

In 1978 De Giorgi formulated the following conjecture. Let be a solution of in all of such that and 0$"> in . Is it true that all level sets of are hyperplanes, at least if ? Equivalently, does depend only on one variable? When , this conjecture was proved in 1997 by N. Ghoussoub and C. Gui. In the present paper we prove it for . The question, however, remains open for . The results for and 3 apply also to the equation for a large class of nonlinearities .

     

Hilbert schemes, polygraphs and the Macdonald positivity conjecture

We study the isospectral Hilbert scheme , defined as the reduced fiber product of with the Hilbert scheme of points in the plane , over the symmetric power . By a theorem of Fogarty, is smooth. We prove that is normal, Cohen-Macaulay and Gorenstein, and hence flat over . We derive two important consequences.

(1) We prove the strong form of the conjecture of Garsia and the author, giving a representation-theoretic interpretation of the Kostka-Macdonald coefficients . This establishes the Macdonald positivity conjecture, namely that .

(2) We show that the Hilbert scheme is isomorphic to the -Hilbert scheme of Nakamura, in such a way that is identified with the universal family over . From this point of view, describes the fiber of a character sheaf at a torus-fixed point of corresponding to .

The proofs rely on a study of certain subspace arrangements , called polygraphs, whose coordinate rings carry geometric information about . The key result is that is a free module over the polynomial ring in one set of coordinates on . This is proven by an intricate inductive argument based on elementary commutative algebra.

     

Purity of the stratification by Newton polygons

Let be a variety in characteristic . Suppose we are given a nondegenerate -crystal over , for example the th relative crystalline cohomology sheaf of a family of smooth projective varieties over . At each point of we have the Newton polygon associated to the action of on the fibre of the crystal at . According to a theorem of Grothendieck the Newton polygon jumps up under specialization. The main theorem of this paper is that the jumps occur in codimension on (the Purity Theorem). As an application we prove some results on deformations of iso-simple -divisible groups.