Topology of symplectomorphism groups of rational ruled surfaces

Let be either or the one point blow-up of . In both cases carries a family of symplectic forms , where -1$"> determines the cohomology class . This paper calculates the rational (co)homology of the group of symplectomorphisms of as well as the rational homotopy type of its classifying space . It turns out that each group contains a finite collection , of finite dimensional Lie subgroups that generate its homotopy. We show that these subgroups ``asymptotically commute", i.e. all the higher Whitehead products that they generate vanish as . However, for each fixed there is essentially one nonvanishing product that gives rise to a ``jumping generator" in and to a single relation in the rational cohomology ring . An analog of this generator was also seen by Kronheimer in his study of families of symplectic forms on -manifolds using Seiberg-Witten theory. Our methods involve a close study of the space of -compatible almost complex structures on .

     

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.

     

Random polynomials with prescribed Newton polytope

The Newton polytope of a polynomial is well known to have a strong impact on its behavior. The Bernstein-Kouchnirenko Theorem asserts that even the number of simultaneous zeros in of a system of polynomials depends on their Newton polytopes. In this article, we show that Newton polytopes also have a strong impact on the distribution of zeros and pointwise norms of polynomials, the basic theme being that Newton polytopes determine allowed and forbidden regions in for these distributions.

Our results are statistical and asymptotic in the degree of the polynomials. We equip the space of polynomials of degree in complex variables with its usual SU-invariant Gaussian probability measure and then consider the conditional measure induced on the subspace of polynomials with fixed Newton polytope . We then determine the asymptotics of the conditional expectation of simultaneous zeros of polynomials with Newton polytope as . When , the unit simplex, it is clear that the expected zero distributions are uniform relative to the Fubini-Study form. For a convex polytope , we show that there is an allowed region on which is asymptotically uniform as the scaling factor . However, the zeros have an exotic distribution in the complementary forbidden region and when (the case of the Bernstein-Kouchnirenko Theorem), the expected percentage of simultaneous zeros in the forbidden region approaches 0 as .

     

Conformal restriction: The chordal case

We characterize and describe all random subsets of a given simply connected planar domain (the upper half-plane , say) which satisfy the ``conformal restriction' property, i.e., connects two fixed boundary points ( and , say) and the law of conditioned to remain in a simply connected open subset of is identical to that of , where is a conformal map from onto with and . The construction of this family relies on the stochastic Loewner evolution processes with parameter and on their distortion under conformal maps. We show in particular that SLE is the only random simple curve satisfying conformal restriction and we relate it to the outer boundaries of planar Brownian motion and SLE.     

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.

     

Simple homogeneous models

Geometrical stability theory is a powerful set of model-theoretic tools that can lead to structural results on models of a simple first-order theory. Typical results offer a characterization of the groups definable in a model of the theory. The work is carried out in a universal domain of the theory (a saturated model) in which the Stone space topology on ultrafilters of definable relations is compact. Here we operate in the more general setting of homogeneous models, which typically have noncompact Stone topologies. A structure equipped with a class of finitary relations is strongly -homogeneous if orbits under automorphisms of have finite character in the following sense: Given an ordinal and sequences , from , if and have the same orbit, for all and , then for some automorphism of . In this paper strongly -homogeneous models in which the elements of induce a symmetric and transitive notion of independence with bounded character are studied. This notion of independence, defined using a combinatorial condition called ``dividing', agrees with forking independence when is saturated. A concept central to the development of stability theory for saturated structures, namely parallelism, is also shown to be well-behaved in this setting. These results broaden the scope of the methods of geometrical stability theory.

     

On the equation and application to control of phases

The main result is the following. Let be a bounded Lipschitz domain in , . Then for every with , there exists a solution of the equation div in , satisfying in addition on and the estimate

where depends only on . However one cannot choose depending linearly on .

Our proof is constructive, but nonlinear--which is quite surprising for such an elementary linear PDE. When there is a simpler proof by duality--hence nonconstructive.

     

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.

     

Universal characteristic factors and Furstenberg averages

Let be an ergodic probability measure-preserving system. For a natural number we consider the averages

where , and are integers. A factor of is characteristic for averaging schemes of length (or -characteristic) if for any nonzero distinct integers , the limiting behavior of the averages in (*) is unaltered if we first project the functions onto the factor. A factor of is a -universal characteristic factor (-u.c.f.) if it is a -characteristic factor, and a factor of any -characteristic factor. We show that there exists a unique -u.c.f., and it has the structure of a -step nilsystem, more specifically an inverse limit of -step nilflows. Using this we show that the averages in (*) converge in . This provides an alternative proof to the one given by Host and Kra.

     

The averaging lemma

Averaging lemmas deduce smoothness of velocity averages, such as

from properties of . A canonical example is that is in the Sobolev space whenever and are in . The present paper shows how techniques from Harmonic Analysis such as maximal functions, wavelet decompositions, and interpolation can be used to prove versions of the averaging lemma. For example, it is shown that implies that is in the Besov space , . Examples are constructed using wavelet decompositions to show that these averaging lemmas are sharp. A deeper analysis of the averaging lemma is made near the endpoint .