Lax embeddings of the Hermitian unital

In this paper, we prove that every lax generalized Veronesean embedding of the Hermitian unital ${\mathcal{U}}$ of ${\mathsf{PG}(2,\mathbb{L}), \mathbb{L}}$ a quadratic extension of the field ${\mathbb{K}}$ and ${|\mathbb{K}| \geq 3}$ , in a ${\mathsf{PG}(d,\mathbb{F})}$ , with ${\mathbb{F}}$ any field and d ≥ 7, such that disjoint blocks span disjoint subspaces, is the standard Veronesean embedding in a subgeometry ${\mathsf{PG}(7,\mathbb{K}^{\prime})}$ of ${\mathsf{PG}(7,\mathbb{F})}$ (and d = 7) or it consists of the projection from a point ${p \in \mathcal{U}}$ of ${\mathcal{U}{\setminus} \{p\}}$ from a subgeometry ${\mathsf{PG}(7,\mathbb{K}^{\prime})}$ of ${\mathsf{PG}(7,\mathbb{F})}$ into a hyperplane ${\mathsf{PG}(6,\mathbb{K}^{\prime})}$ . In order to do so, when ${|\mathbb{K}| >3 }$ we strongly use the linear representation of the affine part of ${\mathcal{U}}$ (the line at infinity being secant) as the affine part of the generalized quadrangle ${\mathsf{Q}(4,\mathbb{K})}$ (the solid at infinity being non-singular); when ${|\mathbb{K}| =3}$ , we use the connection of ${\mathcal{U}}$ with the generalized hexagon of order 2.     

Improved bounds for separating hash families

An ${(N;n,m,\{w_1,\ldots, w_t\})}$ -separating hash family is a set ${\mathcal{H}}$ of N functions ${h: \; X \longrightarrow Y}$ with ${|X|=n, |Y|=m, t \geq 2}$ having the following property. For any pairwise disjoint subsets ${C_1, \ldots, C_t \subseteq X}$ with ${|C_i|=w_i, i=1, \ldots, t}$ , there exists at least one function ${h \in \mathcal{H}}$ such that ${h(C_1), h(C_2), \ldots, h(C_t)}$ are pairwise disjoint. Separating hash families generalize many known combinatorial structures such as perfect hash families, frameproof codes, secure frameproof codes, identifiable parent property codes. In this paper we present new upper bounds on n which improve many previously known bounds. Further we include constructions showing that some of these bounds are tight.     

On the Generality of Assuming that a Family of Continuous Functions Separates Points

For an algebra ${\mathcal{A}}$ of complex-valued, continuous functions on a compact Hausdorff space (X, τ), it is standard practice to assume that ${\mathcal{A}}$ separates points in the sense that for each distinct pair ${x, y \in X}$ , there exists an ${f \in \mathcal{A}}$ such that ${f(x) \neq f(y)}$ . If ${\mathcal{A}}$ does not separate points, it is known that there exists an algebra ${\widehat{\mathcal{A}}}$ on a compact Hausdorff space ${(\widehat{X}, \widehat{\tau})}$ that does separate points such that the map ${\mathcal{A} \mapsto \widehat{\mathcal{A}}}$ is a uniform norm isometric algebra isomorphism. So it is, to a degree, without loss of generality that we assume ${\mathcal{A}}$ separates points. The construction of ${{\widehat{\mathcal{A}}}}$ and ${(\widehat{X}, \widehat{\tau})}$ does not require that ${\mathcal{A}}$ has any algebraic structure nor that ${(X, \tau)}$ has any properties, other than being a topological space. In this work we develop a framework for determining the degree to which separation of points may be assumed without loss of generality for any family ${\mathcal{A}}$ of bounded, complex-valued, continuous functions on any topological space ${(X, \tau)}$ . We also demonstrate that further structures may be preserved by the mapping ${\mathcal{A} \mapsto \widehat{\mathcal{A}}}$ , such as boundaries of weak peak points, the Lipschitz constant when the functions are Lipschitz on a compact metric space, and the involutive structure of real function algebras on compact Hausdorff spaces.     

Forbidden configurations and Steiner designs

Let ${\mathcal{F}}$ be a (0, 1) matrix. A (0, 1) matrix ${\mathcal{M}}$ is said to have ${\mathcal{F}}$ as a configuration if there is a submatrix of ${\mathcal{M}}$ which is a row and column permutation of ${\mathcal{F}}$ . We say that a matrix ${\mathcal{M}}$ is simple if it has no repeated columns. For a given ${v \in \mathbb{N}}$ , we shall denote by forb ${(v, \mathcal{F})}$ the maximum number of columns in a simple (0, 1) matrix with v rows for which ${\mathcal{F}}$ does not occur as a configuration. We say that a matrix ${\mathcal{M}}$ is maximal for ${\mathcal{F}}$ if ${\mathcal{M}}$ has forb ${(v, \mathcal{F})}$ columns. In this paper we show that for certain natural choices of ${\mathcal{F}}$ , forb ${(v, \mathcal{F})\leq\frac{\binom{v}{t}}{t+1}}$ . In particular this gives an extremal characterization for Steiner t-designs as maximal (0, 1) matrices in terms of certain forbidden configurations.     

Closed Range Property for Holomorphic Semi-Fredholm Functions

Given Banach spaces X and Y, we show that, for each operator-valued analytic map ${\alpha \in \mathcal O (D,\mathcal L(Y,X))}$ satisfying the finiteness condition ${\dim (X/\alpha (z)Y) < \infty}$ pointwise on an open set D in ${\mathbb {C}^n}$ , the induced multiplication operator ${\mathcal O(U,Y) \stackrel{\alpha}{\longrightarrow} \mathcal O (U,X)}$ has closed range on each Stein open set ${U \subset D}$ . As an application we deduce that the generalized range ${{\rm R}^{\infty}(T) = \bigcap_{k \geq 1}\sum_{| \alpha | = k} T^{\alpha}X}$ of a commuting multioperator ${T \in \mathcal L(X)^n}$ with ${\dim(X/\sum_{i=1}^n T_iX) < \infty}$ can be represented as a suitable spectral subspace.     

Some results on metric n-Lie algebras

We study the structure of a metric n-Lie algebra G over the complex field C. Let G = SR be the Levi decomposition, where R is the radical of G and S is a strong semisimple subalgebra of G. Denote by m(G) the number of all minimal ideals of an indecomposable metric n-Lie algebra and R ⊥ the orthogonal complement of R. We obtain the following results. As S-modules, R ⊥ is isomorphic to the dual module of G/R. The dimension of the vector space spanned by all nondegenerate invariant symmetric bilinear forms on G is equal to that of the vector space of certain linear transformations on G; this dimension is greater than or equal to m(G) + 1. The centralizer of R in G is equal to the sum of all minimal ideals; it is the direct sum of R ⊥ and the center of G. Finally, G has no strong semisimple ideals if and only if R⊥■R.     

Generalized Complex Spherical Harmonics, Frame Functions, and Gleason Theorem

Consider a finite dimensional complex Hilbert space ${\mathcal{H}}$ , with ${dim(\mathcal{H}) \geq 3}$ , define ${\mathbb{S}(\mathcal{H}):= \{x\in \mathcal{H} \:|\: \|x\|=1\}}$ , and let ${\nu_\mathcal{H}}$ be the unique regular Borel positive measure invariant under the action of the unitary operators in ${\mathcal{H}}$ , with ${\nu_\mathcal{H}(\mathbb{S}(\mathcal{H}))=1}$ . We prove that if a complex frame function ${f : \mathbb{S}(\mathcal{H})\to \mathbb{C}}$ satisfies ${f \in \mathbb{L}^2(\mathbb{S}(\mathcal{H}), \nu_\mathcal{H})}$ , then it verifies Gleason’s statement: there is a unique linear operator ${A: \mathcal{H} \to \mathcal{H}}$ such that ${f(u) = \langle u| A u\rangle}$ for every ${u \in \mathbb{S}(\mathcal{H}).\,A}$ is Hermitean when f is real. No boundedness requirement is thus assumed on f a priori.     

Sets Computing the Symmetric Tensor Rank

Let ${\nu_{d} : \mathbb{P}^{r} \rightarrow \mathbb{P}^{N}, N := \left( \begin{array}{ll} r + d \\ \,\,\,\,\,\, r \end{array} \right)- 1,}$ denote the degree d Veronese embedding of ${\mathbb{P}^{r}}$ . For any ${P\, \in \, \mathbb{P}^{N}}$ , the symmetric tensor rank sr(P) is the minimal cardinality of a set ${\mathcal{S} \subset \nu_{d}(\mathbb{P}^{r})}$ spanning P. Let ${\mathcal{S}(P)}$ be the set of all ${A \subset \mathbb{P}^{r}}$ such that ${\nu_{d}(A)}$ computes sr(P). Here we classify all ${P \,\in\, \mathbb{P}^{n}}$ such that sr(P) <  3d/2 and sr(P) is computed by at least two subsets of ${\nu_{d}(\mathbb{P}^{r})}$ . For such tensors ${P\, \in\, \mathbb{P}^{N}}$ , we prove that ${\mathcal{S}(P)}$ has no isolated points.     

Rigidity of the Álvarez class

Let ${(M,\mathcal{F})}$ be a closed manifold with a Riemannian foliation. The Álvarez class of ${(M,\mathcal{F})}$ is a cohomology class of M of degree 1 whose triviality characterizes the minimizability or the geometrically tautness of ${(M,\mathcal{F})}$ . We show that the integral of the Álvarez class of ${(M,\mathcal{F})}$ along every closed path is the logarithm of an algebraic integer if π₁ M is polycyclic or ${\mathcal{F}}$ is of polynomial growth.     

A unified approach for minimizing composite norms

We propose a first-order augmented Lagrangian algorithm (FALC) to solve the composite norm minimization problem $$\begin{aligned} \begin{array}{ll} \min \limits _{X\in \mathbb{R }^{m\times n}}&\mu _1\Vert \sigma (\mathcal{F }(X)-G)\Vert _\alpha +\mu _2\Vert \mathcal{C }(X)-d\Vert _\beta ,\\ \text{ subject} \text{ to}&\mathcal{A }(X)-b\in \mathcal{Q }, \end{array} \end{aligned}$$ where $\sigma (X)$ denotes the vector of singular values of $X \in \mathbb{R }^{m\times n}$ , the matrix norm $\Vert \sigma (X)\Vert _{\alpha }$ denotes either the Frobenius, the nuclear, or the $\ell _2$ -operator norm of $X$ , the vector norm $\Vert .\Vert _{\beta }$ denotes either the $\ell _1$ -norm, $\ell _2$ -norm or the $\ell _{\infty }$ -norm; $\mathcal{Q }$ is a closed convex set and $\mathcal{A }(.)$ , $\mathcal{C }(.)$ , $\mathcal{F }(.)$ are linear operators from $\mathbb{R }^{m\times n}$ to vector spaces of appropriate dimensions. Basis pursuit, matrix completion, robust principal component pursuit (PCP), and stable PCP problems are all special cases of the composite norm minimization problem. Thus, FALC is able to solve all these problems in a unified manner. We show that any limit point of FALC iterate sequence is an optimal solution of the composite norm minimization problem. We also show that for all $\epsilon >0$ , the FALC iterates are $\epsilon $ -feasible and $\epsilon $ -optimal after $\mathcal{O }(\log (\epsilon ^{-1}))$ iterations, which require $\mathcal{O }(\epsilon ^{-1})$ constrained shrinkage operations and Euclidean projection onto the set $\mathcal{Q }$ . Surprisingly, on the problem sets we tested, FALC required only $\mathcal{O }(\log (\epsilon ^{-1}))$ constrained shrinkage, instead of the $\mathcal{O }(\epsilon ^{-1})$ worst case bound, to compute an $\epsilon $ -feasible and $\epsilon $ -optimal solution. To best of our knowledge, FALC is the first algorithm with a known complexity bound that solves the stable PCP problem.     

Donsker-type theorems for nonparametric maximum likelihood estimators

Let ${\mathcal{P}}$ be a nonparametric probability model consisting of smooth probability densities and let ${\hat{p}_{n}}$ be the corresponding maximum likelihood estimator based on n independent observations each distributed according to the law ${\mathbb{P}}$ . With $\hat{\mathbb{P}}_{n}$ denoting the measure induced by the density ${\hat{p}_{n}}$ , define the stochastic process ${\hat{\nu}}_{n}: f\longmapsto \sqrt{n} \int fd({\hat{\mathbb{P}}}_{n} -\mathbb{P})$ where f ranges over some function class ${\mathcal{F}}$ . We give a general condition for Donsker classes ${\mathcal{F}}$ implying that the stochastic process $\hat{\nu}_{n}$ is asymptotically equivalent to the empirical process in the space ${\ell ^{\infty }(\mathcal{F})}$ of bounded functions on ${ \mathcal{F}}$ . This implies in particular that $\hat{\nu}_{n}$ converges in law in ${\ell ^{\infty }(\mathcal{F})}$ to a mean zero Gaussian process. We verify the general condition for a large family of Donsker classes ${\mathcal{ F}}$ . We give a number of applications: convergence of the probability measure ${\hat{\mathbb{P}}_{n}}$ to ${\mathbb{P}}$ at rate ${\sqrt{n}}$ in certain metrics metrizing the topology of weak(-star) convergence; a unified treatment of convergence rates of the MLE in a continuous scale of Sobolev-norms; ${\sqrt{n}}$ -efficient estimation of nonlinear functionals defined on ${\mathcal{P}}$ ; limit theorems at rate ${\sqrt{n}}$ for the maximum likelihood estimator of the convolution product ${\mathbb{P\ast P}}$ .     

{\boldsymbol(}\boldsymbol{\mathcal{Z}}_{\bf 1}, \boldsymbol{\mathcal{Z}}_{\bf 2}{\boldsymbol)}-Complete Partially Ordered Sets and Their Representations by \boldsymbol{\mathcal{Q}}-Spaces

The present paper proposes a general theory for $\left( \mathcal{Z}_{1}, \mathcal{Z}_{2}\right) $ -complete partially ordered sets (alias $\mathcal{Z} _{1}$ -join complete and $\mathcal{Z}_{2}$ -meet complete partially ordered sets) and their Stone-like representations. It is shown that for suitably chosen subset selections $\mathcal{Z}_{i}$ (i?=?1,...,4) and $\mathcal{Q} =\left( \mathcal{Z}_{1},\mathcal{Z}_{2},\mathcal{Z}_{3},\mathcal{Z} _{4}\right) $ , the category $\mathcal{Q}$ P of $\left( \mathcal{Z}_{1},\mathcal{Z}_{2}\right) $ -complete partially ordered sets and $\left( \mathcal{Z}_{3},\mathcal{Z}_{4}\right) $ -continuous (alias $\mathcal{ Z}_{3}$ -join preserving and $\mathcal{Z}_{4}$ -meet preserving) functions forms a useful categorical framework for various order-theoretical constructs, and has a close connection with the category $\mathcal{Q}$ S of $\mathcal{Q}$ -spaces which are generalizations of topological spaces involving subset selections. In particular, this connection turns into a dual equivalence between the full subcategory $ \mathcal{Q}$ P _s of $\mathcal{Q}$ P of all $\mathcal{Q}$ -spatial objects and the full subcategory $\mathcal{Q}$ S _s of $\mathcal{Q}$ S of all $\mathcal{Q}$ -sober objects. Here $\mathcal{Q}$ -spatiality and $\mathcal{Q}$ -sobriety extend usual notions of spatiality of locales and sobriety of topological spaces to the present approach, and their relations to $\mathcal{Z}$ -compact generation and $\mathcal{Z}$ -sobriety have also been pointed out in this paper.     

Modular Decomposition of the Orlik-Terao Algebra

Let ${\mathcal{A}}$ be a collection of n linear hyperplanes in ${\mathbb{k}^\ell}$ , where ${\mathbb{k}}$ is an algebraically closed field. The Orlik-Terao algebra of ${\mathcal{A}}$ is the subalgebra ${{\rm R}(\mathcal{A})}$ of the rational functions generated by reciprocals of linear forms vanishing on hyperplanes of ${\mathcal{A}}$ . It determines an irreducible subvariety ${Y (\mathcal{A})}$ of ${\mathbb{P}^{n-1}}$ . We show that a flat X of ${\mathcal{A}}$ is modular if and only if ${{\rm R}(\mathcal{A})}$ is a split extension of the Orlik-Terao algebra of the subarrangement ${\mathcal{A}_X}$ . This provides another refinement of Stanley’s modular factorization theorem [34] and a new characterization of modularity, similar in spirit to the fibration theorem of [27]. We deduce that if ${\mathcal{A}}$ is supersolvable, then its Orlik-Terao algebra is Koszul. In certain cases, the algebra is also a complete intersection, and we characterize when this happens.     

An extension of one direction in Marty’s normality criterion

We prove the following extension of one direction in Marty’s theorem: If $k$ is a natural number, $\alpha >1$ and $\mathcal{F }$ is a family of functions meromorphic on a domain $D$ all of whose poles have multiplicity at least $\frac{k}{\alpha -1}$ , then the normality of $\mathcal{F }$ implies that the family $$\begin{aligned} \left\{ \frac{|f^{(k)}|}{1+|f|^\alpha }\,:\, f\in \mathcal{F }\right\} \end{aligned}$$ is locally uniformly bounded.     

Split Partial Isometries

A partial isometry V is said to be a split partial isometry if ${\mathcal{H}=R(V) + N(V)}$ , with R(V) ∩ N(V) = {0} (R(V) = range of V, N(V) = null-space of V). We study the topological properties of the set ${\mathcal{I}_0}$ of such partial isometries. Denote by ${\mathcal{I}}$ the set of all partial isometries of ${\mathcal{B}(\mathcal{H})}$ , and by ${\mathcal{I}_N}$ the set of normal partial isometries. Then $$\mathcal{I}_N\subset \mathcal{I}_0\subset \mathcal{I}, $$ and the inclusions are proper. It is known that ${\mathcal{I}}$ is a C ^∞-submanifold of ${\mathcal{B}(\mathcal{H})}$ . It is shown here that ${\mathcal{I}_0}$ is open in ${\mathcal{I}}$ , therefore is has also C ^∞-local structure. We characterize the set ${\mathcal{I}_0}$ , in terms of metric properties, existence of special pseudo-inverses, and a property of the spectrum and the resolvent of V. The connected components of ${\mathcal{I}_0}$ are characterized: ${V_0,V_1\in \mathcal{I}_0}$ lie in the same connected component if and only if $${\rm dim}\, R(V_0)= {\rm dim}\, R(V_1) \,\,{\rm and}\,\,\, {\rm dim}\, R(V_0)^\perp = {\rm dim}\, R(V_1)^\perp.$$ This result is known for normal partial isometries.     

Uniqueness of integrable solutions to {\nabla \zeta=G \zeta, \zeta|_\Gamma = 0} for integrable tensor coefficients G and applications to elasticity

Let ${\Omega \subset \mathbb{R}^{N}}$ be a Lipschitz domain and Γ be a relatively open and non-empty subset of its boundary ${\partial\Omega}$ . We show that the solution to the linear first-order system $$\nabla \zeta = G\zeta, \, \, \zeta|_\Gamma = 0 \quad \quad \quad (1)$$ is unique if ${G \in \textsf{L}^{1}(\Omega; \mathbb{R}^{(N \times N) \times N})}$ and ${\zeta \in \textsf{W}^{1,1}(\Omega; \mathbb{R}^{N})}$ . As a consequence, we prove $$||| \cdot ||| : \textsf{C}_{o}^{\infty}(\Omega, \Gamma; \mathbb{R}^{3}) \rightarrow [0, \infty), \, \, u \mapsto \parallel {\rm sym}(\nabla uP^{-1})\parallel_{\textsf{L}^{2}(\Omega)}$$ to be a norm for ${P \in \textsf{L}^{\infty}(\Omega; \mathbb{R}^{3 \times 3})}$ with Curl ${P \in \textsf{L}^{p}(\Omega; \mathbb{R}^{3 \times 3})}$ , Curl ${P^{-1} \in \textsf{L}^{q}(\Omega; \mathbb{R}^{3 \times 3})}$ for some p, q > 1 with 1/p + 1/q = 1 as well as det ${P \geq c^+ > 0}$ . We also give a new and different proof for the so-called ‘infinitesimal rigid displacement lemma’ in curvilinear coordinates: Let ${\Phi \in \textsf{H}^{1}(\Omega; \mathbb{R}^{3})}$ satisfy sym ${(\nabla\Phi^\top\nabla\Psi) = 0}$ for some ${\Psi \in \textsf{W}^{1,\infty}(\Omega; \mathbb{R}^{3}) \cap \textsf{H}^{2}(\Omega; \mathbb{R}^{3})}$ with det ${\nabla\Psi \geq c^+ > 0}$ . Then, there exist a constant translation vector ${a \in \mathbb{R}^{3}}$ and a constant skew-symmetric matrix ${A \in \mathfrak{so}(3)}$ , such that ${\Phi = A\Psi + a}$ .     

On topological diversity of rectilinear representations of countably infinite graphs

We prove that, for each simple graph G whose set of vertices is countably infinite, there is a family ${\varvec{\mathcal{R}}(\varvec{G})}$ of the cardinality of the continuum of graphs such that (1) each graph ${\varvec{H} \in \varvec{\mathcal{R}}(\varvec{G})}$ is isomorphic to G, all vertices of H are points of the Euclidean space E ³, all edges of H are straight line segments (the ends of each edge are the vertices joined by it), the intersection of any two edges of H is either their common vertex or empty, and any isolated vertex of H does not belong to any edge of H; (2) all sets ${\varvec{\mathcal{B}}(\varvec{H})}$ ( ${\varvec{H} \in \varvec{\mathcal{R}}(\varvec{G})}$ ), where ${\varvec{\mathcal{B}}(\varvec{H})\subset \mathbf{E}^3}$ is the union of all vertices and all edges of H, are pairwise not homeomorphic; moreover, for any graphs ${\varvec{H}_1 \in \varvec{\mathcal{R}}(\varvec{G})}$ and ${\varvec{H}_2 \in \varvec{\mathcal{R}}(\varvec{G})}$ , ${\varvec{H}_1 \ne \varvec{H}_2}$ , and for any finite subsets ${\varvec{S}_i \subset \varvec{\mathcal{B}}(\varvec{H}_i)}$ (i = 1, 2), the sets ${\varvec{\mathcal{B}}(\varvec{H}_1){\setminus} \varvec{S}_1}$ and ${\varvec{\mathcal{B}}(\varvec{H}_2){\setminus} \varvec{S}_2}$ are not homeomorphic.     

Saddle solutions for bistable symmetric semilinear elliptic equations

This paper concerns the existence and asymptotic characterization of saddle solutions in ${\mathbb {R}^{3}}$ for semilinear elliptic equations of the form $$-\Delta u + W'(u) = 0,\quad (x, y, z) \in {\mathbb {R}^{3}} \qquad\qquad\qquad (0.1)$$ where ${W \in \mathcal{C}^{3}(\mathbb {R})}$ is a double well symmetric potential, i.e. it satisfies W(?s) =  W(s) for ${s \in \mathbb {R},W(s) > 0}$ for ${s \in (-1,1)}$ , ${W(\pm 1) = 0}$ and ${W''(\pm 1) > 0}$ . Denoted with ${\theta_{2}}$ the saddle planar solution of (0.1), we show the existence of a unique solution ${\theta_{3} \in {\mathcal{C}^{2}}(\mathbb {R}^{3})}$ which is odd with respect to each variable, symmetric with respect to the diagonal planes, verifies ${0 < \theta_{3}(x,y,z) < 1}$ for x, y, z >  0 and ${\theta_{3}(x, y, z) \to_{z \to + \infty} \theta_{2}(x, y)}$ uniformly with respect to ${(x, y) \in \mathbb {R}^{2}}$ .