Homological methods for hypergeometric families

We analyze the behavior of the holonomic rank in families of holonomic systems over complex algebraic varieties by providing homological criteria for rank-jumps in this general setting. Then we investigate rank-jump behavior for hypergeometric systems  arising from a integer matrix  and a parameter . To do so we introduce an Euler-Koszul functor for hypergeometric families over  , whose homology generalizes the notion of a hypergeometric system, and we prove a homology isomorphism with our general homological construction above. We show that a parameter is rank-jumping for if and only if lies in the Zariski closure of the set of -graded degrees  where the local cohomology of the semigroup ring supported at its maximal graded ideal  is nonzero. Consequently, has no rank-jumps over  if and only if is Cohen-Macaulay of dimension .

     

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.

     

A solution to the L space problem

In this paper I will construct a non-separable hereditarily Lindelöf space (L space) without any additional axiomatic assumptions. The constructed space is a subspace of where is the unit circle. It is shown to have a number of properties which may be of additional interest. For instance it is shown that the closure in of any uncountable subset of contains a canonical copy of .

I will also show that there is a function such that if are uncountable and , then there are in and respectively with . Previously it was unknown whether such a function existed even if was replaced by . Finally, I will prove that there is no basis for the uncountable regular Hausdorff spaces of cardinality .

The results all stem from the analysis of oscillations of coherent sequences of finite-to-one functions. I expect that the methods presented will have other applications as well.

     

Dirac cohomology, unitary representations and a proof of a conjecture of Vogan

Let be a connected semisimple Lie group with finite center. Let be the maximal compact subgroup of corresponding to a fixed Cartan involution . We prove a conjecture of Vogan which says that if the Dirac cohomology of an irreducible unitary -module contains a -type with highest weight , then has infinitesimal character . Here is the half sum of the compact positive roots. As an application of the main result we classify irreducible unitary -modules with non-zero Dirac cohomology, provided has a strongly regular infinitesimal character. We also mention a generalization to the setting of Kostant's cubic Dirac operator.

     

Sharp transition between extinction and propagation of reaction

We consider the reaction-diffusion equation

on with and . In 1964 Kanel proved that if is an ignition non-linearity, then as when , and when L_1$">. We answer the open question of the relation of and by showing that . We also determine the large time limit of in the critical case , thus providing the phase portrait for the above PDE with respect to a 1-parameter family of initial data. Analogous results for combustion and bistable non-linearities are proved as well.

     

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 .

     

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 .

     

Regularity of the free boundary for the porous medium equation

We study the regularity of the free boundary for solutions of the porous medium equation , , on , with initial data nonnegative and compactly supported. We show that, under certain assumptions on the initial data , the pressure will be smooth up to the interface , when , for some . As a consequence, the free-boundary is smooth.

     

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.

     

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.

     

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.     

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.

     

Boundary rigidity and stability for generic simple metrics

We study the boundary rigidity problem for compact Riemannian manifolds with boundary : is the Riemannian metric uniquely determined, up to an action of diffeomorphism fixing the boundary, by the distance function known for all boundary points and ? We prove in this paper local and global uniqueness and stability for the boundary rigidity problem for generic simple metrics. More specifically, we show that there exists a generic set of simple Riemannian metrics such that for any , any two Riemannian metrics in some neighborhood of having the same distance function, must be isometric. Similarly, there is a generic set of pairs of simple metrics with the same property. We also prove Hölder type stability estimates for this problem for metrics which are close to a given one in .     

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 .

     

On the size of -fold sum and product sets of integers

In this paper, we show that for all 1$"> there is a positive integer such that if is an arbitrary finite set of integers, 2$">, then either N^{b}$"> or N^{b}$">. Here (resp. ) denotes the -fold sum (resp. product) of . This fact is deduced from the following harmonic analysis result obtained in the paper. For all 2$"> and 0$">, there is a 0$"> such that if satisfies , then the -constant of (in the sense of W. Rudin) is at most .

     

Curvature and injectivity radius estimates for Einstein 4-manifolds

Let denote an Einstein -manifold with Einstein constant, , normalized to satisfy . For , a metric ball, we prove a uniform estimate for the pointwise norm of the curvature tensor on , under the assumption that the -norm of the curvature on is less than a small positive constant, which is independent of , and which in particular, does not depend on a lower bound on the volume of . In case , we prove a lower injectivity radius bound analogous to that which occurs in the theorem of Margulis, for compact manifolds with negative sectional curvature, . These estimates provide key tools in the study of singularity formation for -dimensional Einstein metrics. As one application among others, we give a natural compactification of the moduli space of Einstein metrics with negative Einstein constant on a given .

     

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.

     

On a lattice problem of H. Steinhaus

It is shown that there is a subset of such that each isometric copy of (the lattice points in the plane) meets in exactly one point. This provides a positive answer to a problem of H. Steinhaus.

     

Generalized group characters and complex oriented cohomology theories

Let be the classifying space of a finite group . Given a multiplicative cohomology theory , the assignment

is a functor from groups to rings, endowed with induction (transfer) maps. In this paper we investigate these functors for complex oriented cohomology theories , using the theory of complex representations of finite groups as a model for what one would like to know.

An analogue of Artin's Theorem is proved for all complex oriented : the abelian subgroups of serve as a detecting family for , modulo torsion dividing the order of .

When is a complete local ring, with residue field of characteristic and associated formal group of height , we construct a character ring of class functions that computes . The domain of the characters is , the set of -tuples of elements in each of which has order a power of . A formula for induction is also found. The ideas we use are related to the Lubin-Tate theory of formal groups. The construction applies to many cohomology theories of current interest: completed versions of elliptic cohomology, -theory, etc.

The th Morava K-theory Euler characteristic for is computed to be the number of -orbits in . For various groups , including all symmetric groups, we prove that is concentrated in even degrees.

Our results about extend to theorems about , where is a finite -CW complex.

     

On the number of zero-patterns of a sequence of polynomials

Let be a sequence of polynomials of degree in variables over a field . The zero-pattern of at is the set of those ( ) for which . Let denote the number of zero-patterns of as ranges over . We prove that for and

for . For , these bounds are optimal within a factor of . The bound () improves the bound proved by J. Heintz (1983) using the dimension theory of affine varieties. Over the field of real numbers, bounds stronger than Heintz's but slightly weaker than () follow from results of J. Milnor (1964), H.E.  Warren (1968), and others; their proofs use techniques from real algebraic geometry. In contrast, our half-page proof is a simple application of the elementary ``linear algebra bound'.

Heintz applied his bound to estimate the complexity of his quantifier elimination algorithm for algebraically closed fields. We give several additional applications. The first two establish the existence of certain combinatorial objects. Our first application, motivated by the ``branching program' model in the theory of computing, asserts that over any field , most graphs with vertices have projective dimension (the implied constant is absolute). This result was previously known over the reals (Pudlák-Rödl). The second application concerns a lower bound in the span program model for computing Boolean functions. The third application, motivated by a paper by N. Alon, gives nearly tight Ramsey bounds for matrices whose entries are defined by zero-patterns of a sequence of polynomials. We conclude the paper with a number of open problems.