Rational Brauer characters

It is known that every finite group of even order has a non-trivial complex irreducible character which is rational valued. We prove the modular version of this result: If p is an odd prime and G is any finite group of even order, then G has a non-trivial irreducible p-Brauer character which is rational valued. The first author is partially supported by the Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia proyecto MTM2004-06067-C02-01, while the second gratefully acknowledges the support of the NSA (grant H98230-04-0066).     

Real characters and degrees

Several classical theorems on character degrees are revisited from the point of view of the real characters. The research of the first two authors is partially supported by the Spanish Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia (MTM2004-06067-C02-01). The third author gratefully acknowledges the support of the NSF (grant DMS-0600967)     

Functional approach to the random mean of a compound Cox process

The parametric process and counting statistics of a marked point process whose marks belong to a given subset of the mark space of a compound Cox process are derived in this paper by means of functional data analysis. They are illustrated by means of an example and simulation study with different intensity processes for the CCP. This work was partially supported by projects MTM2004-05992 of Dirección General de Investigación, and MTM2004-04230 of Plan Nacional de I+D+I, Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología jointly by the FEDER.     

Numerical Properties of Shifted Tridiagonal LU Factorizations

In this paper, we consider shifted tridiagonal matrices. We prove that the standard algorithm to compute the LU factorization in this situation is mixed forward-backward stable and, therefore, componentwise forward stable. Moreover, we give a formula to compute the corresponding condition number in O(n) flops. This research has been partially supported by Dirección General de Investigación (Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología) of Spain through grants BFM2003-06335-C03-02 and MTM2006-06671 as well as by the Postdoctoral Fellowship EX2004-0658 provided by Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia of Spain.     

The extended Freudenthal Magic Square and Jordan algebras

The Lie superalgebras in the extended Freudenthal Magic Square in characteristic 3 are shown to be related to some known simple Lie superalgebras, specific to this characteristic, constructed in terms of orthogonal and symplectic triple systems, which are defined in terms of central simple degree three Jordan algebras. I. Cunha was supported by CMUC, Department of Mathematics, University of Coimbra. A. Elduque was supported by the Spanish Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia and FEDER (MTM 2004-081159-C04-02) and by the Diputación General de Aragón (Grupo de Investigación de álgebra).     

Primes dividing the degrees of the real characters

Let G be a finite group and let Irr(G) denote the set of all complex irreducible characters of G. The Ito–Michler Theorem asserts that if a prime p does not divide the degree of any χ Irr(G) then a Sylow p-subgroup P of G is normal in G. We prove a real-valued version of this theorem, where instead of Irr(G) we only consider the subset Irr_rv(G) consisting of all real-valued irreducible characters of G. We also prove that the character degree graph associated to Irr_rv(G) has at most 3 connected components. Similar results for the set of real conjugacy classes of G have also been obtained. Part of this paper was done while the second author visited the Mathematics Department of the Università di Firenze. He would like to thank the Department for its hospitality. The authors are also grateful to F. Lübeck for helping them with some computer calculations. The research of the first author was partially supported by MIUR research program “Teoria dei gruppi ed applicazioni”. This research of the second author was partially supported by the Spanish Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia proyecto MTM2004-06067-C02-01. The third author gratefully acknowledges the support of the NSA and the NSF.     

Rational quadrature formulae on the unit circle with arbitrary poles

Interpolatory quadrature rules exactly integrating rational functions on the unit circle are considered. The poles are prescribed under the only restriction of not lying on the unit circle. A computable upper bound of the error is obtained which is valid for any choice of poles, arbitrary weight functions and any degree of exactness provided that the integrand is analytic on a neighborhood of the unit circle. A number of numerical examples are given which show the advantages of using such rules as well as the sharpness of the error bound. Also, a comparison is made with other error bounds appearing in the literature. The work of the first author was supported by the Dirección General de Investigación, Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia, under grants MTM2006-13000-C03-02 and MTM2006-07186 and by UPM and Comunidad de Madrid under grant CCG06-UPM/MTM-539. The work of the second author was partially supported by the Dirección General de Investigación, Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia, under grant MTM2005-08571.     

A Set-Valued Analysis Approach to Second Order Differentiation of Nonsmooth Functions

A theory of second order differentiability for real functions with calm Clarke gradient at points of strict differentiability is presented from a set-valued analysis perspective by using the theory of graphical derivatives of set-valued maps. Connections with other second order theories and applications in optimization are given. This work is partially supported by Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia (Spain), project MTM2006-02629 and IngenioMathematica (i-MATH) CSD2006-00032 (Consolider-Ingenio 2010).     

Fitting Height and Character Degree Graphs

Given a group G, Γ(G) is the graph whose vertices are the primes that divide the degree of some irreducible character and two vertices p and q are joined by an edge if pq divides the degree of some irreducible character of G. By a definition of Lewis, a graph Γ has bounded Fitting height if the Fitting height of any solvable group G with Γ(G)=Γ is bounded (in terms of Γ). In this note, we prove that there exists a universal constant C such that if Γ has bounded Fitting height and Γ(G)=Γ then h(G)≤C. This solves a problem raised by Lewis. Research supported by the Spanish Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia, MTM2004-06067-C02-01 and MTM2004-04665, the FEDER and Programa Ramón y Cajal.     

On linearity of finitely generated R-analytic groups

In this paper we prove that if R is a commutative Noetherian local pro-p domain of characteristic 0, then every finitely generated R-standard group is linear. This work has been partially supported by the FEDER, the MEC Grant MTM2004-04665 and the Ramón y Cajal Program.     

New Constraint Qualification and Conjugate Duality for Composed Convex Optimization Problems

The approach to optimal control problems based on a purely variational reformulation may lead to new existence results by using fine, general existence theorems for variational problems without convexity assumptions. We illustrate this perspective here for autonomous one-dimensional problems and defer the study of more complex situations to later work. This research was supported by Project MTM2004-07114 from Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia (Spain) and by Grant PAI05-029 from JCCM (Castilla-La Mancha).     

An <Emphasis Type="Italic">n</Emphasis>-dimensional Contou–Carrère symbol over an artinian local ring

The aim of this work is to give a definition of an n-dimensional Contou–Carrère symbol. This symbol allows us to define an n-dimensional Witt residue. Moreover, we offer a reciprocity law for the symbol related to a flag of irreducible varieties, in order to obtain an n-dimensional Witt residue Theorem as a particular case of this new reciprocity law. This work is partially supported by the DGI research contract no. MTM2006-07618 and Castilla y León regional government contract SA071/04.     

A new coupling of mixed finite element and boundary element methods for an exterior Helmholtz problem in the plane

This paper deals with the scattering of time harmonic electromagnetic waves by an infinitely long cylinder containing a non-homogeneous conducting medium. More precisely, we study the transverse magnetic field that solves an interface problem holding between the cross section of the cylinder and the exterior two-dimensional free space. We apply a dual-mixed variational formulation in the obstacle coupled with a boundary integral equation method in the unbounded homogeneous space. A Fredholm alternative is utilized to prove that this continuous formulation is well posed. We define the corresponding discrete scheme by using the lowest order rotated Raviart-Thomas finite elements for the magnetic field and spectral elements for the boundary unknown. Then, we show that the resulting Galerkin scheme is uniquely solvable and convergent, and prove optimal error estimates. Finally, we illustrate our analysis with some results from computational experiments. This research was partially supported by CONICYT-Chile through the FONDAP Program in Applied Mathematics, by the Dirección de Investigación of the Universidad de Concepción through the Advanced Research Groups Program, and by the Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia of Spain, through the project No. MTM2004-05417.     

Maximal surface group representations in isometry groups of classical Hermitian symmetric spaces

Higgs bundles and non-abelian Hodge theory provide holomorphic methods with which to study the moduli spaces of surface group representations in a reductive Lie group G. In this paper we survey the case in which G is the isometry group of a classical Hermitian symmetric space of non-compact type. Using Morse theory on the moduli spaces of Higgs bundles, we compute the number of connected components of the moduli space of representations with maximal Toledo invariant Members of VBAC (Vector Bundles on Algebraic Curves). Second and Third authors partially supported by Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia and Conselho de Reitores das Universidades Portuguesas through Acción Integrada Hispano-Lusa HP2002-0017 (Spain)/E–30/03 (Portugal). First and Second authors partially supported by Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia (Spain) through Project MTM2004-07090-C03-01. Third author partially supported by the Centro de Matemática da Universidade do Porto and the project POCTI/MAT/58549/2004, financed by FCT (Portugal) through the programmes POCTI and POSI of the QCA III (2000–2006) with European Community (FEDER) and national funds. The second author visited the IHES with the partial support of the European Commission through its 6th Framework Programme “Structuring the European Research Area” and the Contract No. RITA-CT-2004-505493 for the provision of Transnational Access implemented as Specific Support Action     

Interpolation of Ideal Measures by Abstract K and J Spaces

We work with the abstract K and J interpolation method generated by a sequence lattice Г. We investigate the deviation of an interpolated operator from a given operator ideal by establishing formulae for the ideal measure of the interpolated operator in terms of the ideal measures of restrictions of the operator. Formulae are given in terms of the norms of the shift operators on Г.     

Local Rings of Rings of Quotients

The aim of this paper is to characterize those elements in a semiprime ring R for which taking local rings at elements and rings of quotients are commuting operations. If Q denotes the maximal ring of left quotients of R, then this happens precisely for those elements if R which are von Neumann regular in Q. An intrinsic characterization of such elements is given. We derive as a consequence that the maximal left quotient ring of a prime ring with a nonzero PI-element is primitive and has nonzero socle. If we change Q to the Martindale symmetric ring of quotients, or to the maximal symmetric ring of quotients of R, we obtain similar results: an element a in R is von Neumann regular if and only if the ring of quotients of the local ring of R at a is isomorphic to the local ring of Q at a. Partially supported by the Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia and Fondos Feder, jointly, trough projects MTM2004-03845, MTM2007-61978 and MTM2004-06580-C02-02, MTM2007-60333, by the Junta de Andalucía, FQM-264, FQM336 and FQM02467 and by the Plan de Investigación del Principado de Asturias FICYT-IB05-017.     

Local embeddings of some families of subgroups of finite groups

In this paper we study the influence of the partial cover and avoidance property on the subgroups of some relevant families of subgroups in a finite group.     

On the homotopy groups of p-completed classifying spaces

Among the generalizations of Serre's theorem on the homotopy groups of a finite complex we isolate the one proposed by Dwyer and Wilkerson. Even though the spaces they consider must be 2-connected, we show that it can be used to both recover known results and obtain new theorems about p-completed classifying spaces. All three authors are partially supported by MEC grant MTM2004-06686. The third author is supported by the program Ramón y Cajal, MEC, Spain, and thanks the CIB (Centre Interfacultaire Bernoulli), EPFL, Lausanne for its hospitality.     

Semigroups of Composition Operators in BMOA and the Extension of a Theorem of Sarason

In this paper we deal with the maximal subspace in BMOA where a general semigroup of analytic functions on the unit disk generates a strongly continuous semigroup of composition operators. Particular cases of this question are related to a well-known theorem of Sarason about VMOA. Our results describe analytically that maximal subspace and provide a condition which is sufficient for the maximal subspace to be exactly VMOA. A related necessary condition is also proved in the case when the semigroup has an inner Denjoy-Wolff point. As a byproduct we provide a generalization of the theorem of Sarason. This research has been partially supported by the Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia projects n. MTM2006-14449-C02-01 and MTM2005-08350-C03-03 and by La Consejería de Educación y Ciencia de la Junta de Andalucía.     

A new numerical quadrature formula on the unit circle

In this paper we study a quadrature formula for Bernstein–Szegő measures on the unit circle with a fixed number of nodes and unlimited exactness. Taking into account that the Bernstein–Szegő measures are very suitable for approximating an important class of measures we also present a quadrature formula for this type of measures such that the error can be controlled with a well-bounded formula. This work was supported by Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia under grants number MTM2005-01320 (E. B. and A. C.) and MTM2006-13000-C03-02 (F. M.).