Estimating the ground state energy of the Schrödinger equation for convex potentials

In 2011, the fundamental gap conjecture for Schrödinger operators was proven. This can be used to estimate the ground state energy of the time-independent Schrödinger equation with a convex potential and relative error ε$\epsilon$. Classical deterministic algorithms solving this problem have cost exponential in the number of its degrees of freedom d$d$. We show a quantum algorithm, that is based on a perturbation method, for estimating the ground state energy with relative error ε$\epsilon$. The cost of the algorithm is polynomial in d$d$ and ε⁻¹${\epsilon }^{-1}$, while the number of qubits is polynomial in d$d$ and logε⁻¹$log{\epsilon }^{-1}$. In addition, we present an algorithm for preparing a quantum state that overlaps within 1−δ,δ∈(0,1)$1-\delta ,\delta \in (0,1)$, with the ground state eigenvector of the discretized Hamiltonian. This algorithm also approximates the ground state with relative error ε$\epsilon$. The cost of the algorithm is polynomial in d$d$, ε⁻¹${\epsilon }^{-1}$ and δ⁻¹${\delta }^{-1}$, while the number of qubits is polynomial in d$d$, logε⁻¹$log{\epsilon }^{-1}$ and logδ⁻¹$log{\delta }^{-1}$.     

Asymptotic average shadowing property on compact metric spaces

We prove that if for a continuous map f$f$ on a compact metric space X$X$, the chain recurrent set, R(f)$R\left(f\right)$ has more than one chain component, then f$f$ does not satisfy the asymptotic average shadowing property. We also show that if a continuous map f$f$ on a compact metric space X$X$ has the asymptotic average shadowing property and if A$A$ is an attractor for f$f$, then A$A$ is the single attractor for f$f$ and we have A=R(f)$A=R\left(f\right)$. We also study diffeomorphisms with asymptotic average shadowing property and prove that if M$M$ is a compact manifold which is not finite with dimM=2$dimM=2$, then the C¹$C^1$ interior of the set of all C¹$C^1$ diffeomorphisms with the asymptotic average shadowing property is characterized by the set of Ω$\Omega$-stable diffeomorphisms.     

Hölder continuity of solutions of supercritical dissipative hydrodynamic transport equations

We examine the regularity of weak solutions of quasi-geostrophic (QG) type equations with supercritical (α<1/2$\alpha <1/2$) dissipation α(−Δ)${(-\mathrm{\Delta })}^{\alpha }$. This study is motivated by a recent work of Caffarelli and Vasseur, in which they study the global regularity issue for the critical (α=1/2$\alpha =1/2$) QG equation [L. Caffarelli, A. Vasseur, Drift diffusion equations with fractional diffusion and the quasi-geostrophic equation, arXiv: math.AP/0608447, 2006]. Their approach successively increases the regularity levels of Leray–Hopf weak solutions: from L²$L^2$ to L^∞$L^{\infty }$, from L^∞$L^{\infty }$ to Hölder (Cδ$C^{\delta }$, δ>0$\delta >0$), and from Hölder to classical solutions. In the supercritical case, Leray–Hopf weak solutions can still be shown to be L^∞$L^{\infty }$, but it does not appear that their approach can be easily extended to establish the Hölder continuity of L^∞$L^{\infty }$ solutions. In order for their approach to work, we require the velocity to be in the Hölder space C1−2α$C^{1-2\alpha }$. Higher regularity starting from Cδ$C^{\delta }$ with δ>1−2α$\delta >1-2\alpha$ can be established through Besov space techniques and will be presented elsewhere [P. Constantin, J. Wu, Regularity of Hölder continuous solutions of the supercritical quasi-geostrophic equation, Ann. Inst. H. Poincaré Anal. Non Linéaire, in press].     

An upper bound for a valence of a face in a parallelohedral tiling

Consider a face-to-face parallelohedral tiling of R^d${\mathbb{R}}^d$ and a (d−k)$(d-k)$-dimensional face F$F$ of the tiling. We prove that the valence of F$F$ (i.e. the number of tiles containing F$F$ as a face) is not greater than 2^k$2^k$. If the tiling is affinely equivalent to a Voronoi tiling for some lattice (the so called Voronoi case), this gives a well-known upper bound for the number of vertices of a Delaunay k$k$-cell. Yet we emphasize that such an affine equivalence is not assumed in the proof.     

On probabilistic results for the discrepancy of a hybrid-Monte Carlo sequence

In many applications it has been observed that hybrid-Monte Carlo sequences perform better than Monte Carlo and quasi-Monte Carlo sequences, especially in difficult problems. For a mixed s$s$-dimensional sequence m$m$, whose elements are vectors obtained by concatenating d$d$-dimensional vectors from a low-discrepancy sequence q$q$ with (s−d)$(s-d)$-dimensional random vectors, probabilistic upper bounds for its star discrepancy have been provided. In a paper of G. Ökten, B. Tuffin and V. Burago [G. Ökten, B. Tuffin, V. Burago, J. Complexity 22 (2006), 435–458] it was shown that for arbitrary ε>0$\epsilon >0$ the difference of the star discrepancies of the first N$N$ points of m$m$ and q$q$ is bounded by ε$\epsilon$ with probability at least 1−2exp(−ε²N/2)$1-2exp(-{\epsilon }^{2}N/2)$ for N$N$ sufficiently large. The authors did not study how large N$N$ actually has to be and if and how this actually depends on the parameters s$s$ and ε$\epsilon$. In this note we derive a lower bound for N$N$, which significantly depends on s$s$ and ε$\epsilon$. Furthermore, we provide a probabilistic bound for the difference of the star discrepancies of the first N$N$ points of m$m$ and q$q$, which holds without any restrictions on N$N$. In this sense it improves on the bound of Ökten, Tuffin and Burago and is more helpful in practice, especially for small sample sizes N$N$. We compare this bound to other known bounds.     

Universal polynomials for Severi degrees of toric surfaces

The Severi variety parameterizes plane curves of degree d$d$ with δ$\delta$ nodes. Its degree is called the Severi degree. For large enough d$d$, the Severi degrees coincide with the Gromov–Witten invariants of CP²$\mathbb{C}{\mathbb{P}}^2$. Fomin and Mikhalkin (2010) [10] proved the 1995 conjecture that for fixed δ$\delta$, Severi degrees are eventually polynomial in d$d$.     

Partial rigidity of degenerate CR embeddings into spheres

In this paper, we study degenerate CR embeddings f$f$ of a strictly pseudoconvex hypersurface M⊂Cⁿ⁺¹$M\subset {\mathbb{C}}^{n+1}$ into a sphere S$\mathbb{S}$ in a higher dimensional complex space C^N+1${\mathbb{C}}^{N+1}$. The degeneracy of the mapping f$f$ will be characterized in terms of the ranks of the CR second fundamental form and its covariant derivatives. In 2004, the author, together with X. Huang and D. Zaitsev, established a rigidity result for CR embeddings f$f$ into spheres in low codimensions. A key step in the proof of this result was to show that degenerate mappings are necessarily contained in a complex plane section of the target sphere (partial rigidity). In the 2004 paper, it was shown that if the total rank d$d$ of the second fundamental form and all of its covariant derivatives is <n$<n$ (here, n$n$ is the CR dimension of M$M$), then f(M)$f\left(M\right)$ is contained in a complex plane of dimension n+d+1$n+d+1$. The converse of this statement is also true, as is easy to see. When the total rank d$d$ exceeds n$n$, it is no longer true, in general, that f(M)$f\left(M\right)$ is contained in a complex plane of dimension n+d+1$n+d+1$, as can be seen by examples. In this paper, we carry out a systematic study of degenerate CR mappings into spheres. We show that when the ranks of the second fundamental form and its covariant derivatives exceed the CR dimension n$n$, then partial rigidity may still persist, but there is a “defect” k$k$ that arises from the ranks exceeding n$n$ such that f(M)$f\left(M\right)$ is only contained in a complex plane of dimension n+d+k+1$n+d+k+1$. Moreover, this defect occurs in general, as is illustrated by examples.     

Heat-kernel estimates for random walk among random conductances with heavy tail

We study models of discrete-time, symmetric, Z^d${\mathbb{Z}}^d$-valued random walks in random environments, driven by a field of i.i.d. random nearest-neighbor conductances _ωxy∈[0,1]${\omega }_{xy}\in [0,1]$, with polynomial tail near 0 with exponent γ>0$\gamma >0$. We first prove for all d≥5$d\ge 5$ that the return probability shows an anomalous decay (non-Gaussian) that approaches (up to sub-polynomial terms) a random constant times n⁻²$n^{-2}$ when we push the power γ$\gamma$ to zero. In contrast, we prove that the heat-kernel decay is as close as we want, in a logarithmic sense, to the standard decay n^−d/2$n^{-d/2}$ for large values of the parameter γ$\gamma$.     

On the length of an external branch in the Beta-coalescent

In this paper, we consider Beta(2−α,α)$(2-\alpha ,\alpha )$ (with 1<α<2$1<\alpha <2$) and related Λ$\Lambda$-coalescents. If T⁽ⁿ⁾$T^{\left(n\right)}$ denotes the length of a randomly chosen external branch of the n$n$-coalescent, we prove the convergence of n^α−1T⁽ⁿ⁾$n^{\alpha -1}{T}^{\left(n\right)}$ when n$n$ tends to ∞$\infty$, and give the limit. To this aim, we give asymptotics for the number σ⁽ⁿ⁾${\sigma }^{\left(n\right)}$ of collisions which occur in the n$n$-coalescent until the end of the chosen external branch, and for the block counting process associated with the n$n$-coalescent.     

Embedding cycles of given length in oriented graphs

Kelly, Kühn and Osthus conjectured that for any ?≥4$?\ge 4$ and the smallest number k≥3$k\ge 3$ that does not divide ?$?$, any large enough oriented graph G$G$ with δ⁺(G),δ⁻(G)≥⌊|V(G)|/k⌋+1${\delta }^{+}\left(G\right),{\delta }^{-}\left(G\right)\ge \lfloor \left|V\left(G\right)\right|/k\rfloor +1$ contains a directed cycle of length ?$?$. We prove this conjecture asymptotically for the case when ?$?$ is large enough compared to k$k$ and k≥7$k\ge 7$. The case when k≤6$k\le 6$ was already settled asymptotically by Kelly, Kühn and Osthus.     

Convergence of invariant measures for singular stochastic diffusion equations

It is proved that the solutions to the singular stochastic p$p$-Laplace equation, p∈(1,2)$p\in (1,2)$ and the solutions to the stochastic fast diffusion equation with nonlinearity parameter r∈(0,1)$r\in (0,1)$ on a bounded open domain Λ⊂R^d$\Lambda \subset {\mathbb{R}}^d$ with Dirichlet boundary conditions are continuous in mean, uniformly in time, with respect to the parameters p$p$ and r$r$ respectively (in the Hilbert spaces L²(Λ)$L^2\left(\Lambda \right)$, H⁻¹(Λ)$H^{-1}\left(\Lambda \right)$ respectively). The highly singular limit case p=1$p=1$ is treated with the help of stochastic evolution variational inequalities, where P$\mathbb{P}$-a.s. convergence, uniformly in time, is established.     

Singular solutions of Hessian elliptic equations in five dimensions

We show that for any δ∈[0,1)$\delta \in [0,1)$ there exists a homogeneous order 2−δ$2-\delta$ analytic outside zero solution to a uniformly elliptic Hessian equation in R⁵${\mathbb{R}}^5$.     

Multidimensional extension of the Morse–Hedlund theorem

A celebrated result of Morse and Hedlund, stated in 1938, asserts that a sequence x$x$ over a finite alphabet is ultimately periodic if and only if, for some n$n$, the number of different factors of length n$n$ appearing in x$x$ is less than n+1$n+1$. Attempts to extend this fundamental result, for example, to higher dimensions, have been considered during the last fifteen years. Let d≥2$d\ge 2$. A legitimate extension to a multidimensional setting of the notion of periodicity is to consider sets of Z^d${\mathbb{Z}}^d$ definable by a first order formula in the Presburger arithmetic 〈Z;<,+〉$〈\mathbb{Z};<,+〉$. With this latter notion and using a powerful criterion due to Muchnik, we exhibit a complete extension of the Morse–Hedlund theorem to an arbitrary dimension d$d$ and characterize sets of Z^d${\mathbb{Z}}^d$ definable in 〈Z;<,+〉$〈\mathbb{Z};<,+〉$ in terms of some functions counting recurrent blocks, that is, blocks occurring infinitely often.     

Galois points for a plane curve in characteristic two

Let C$C$ be an irreducible plane curve. A point P$P$ in the projective plane is said to be Galois with respect to C$C$ if the function field extension induced by the projection from P$P$ is Galois. We denote by δ^′(C)${\delta }^{\prime }\left(C\right)$ the number of Galois points contained in P²?C${\mathbb{P}}^2?C$. In this article we will present two results with respect to determination of δ^′(C)${\delta }^{\prime }\left(C\right)$ in characteristic two. First we determine δ^′(C)${\delta }^{\prime }\left(C\right)$ for smooth plane curves of degree a power of two. In particular, we give a new characterization of the Klein quartic in terms of δ^′(C)${\delta }^{\prime }\left(C\right)$. Second we determine δ^′(C)${\delta }^{\prime }\left(C\right)$ for a generalization of the Klein quartic, which is related to an example of Artin–Schreier curves whose automorphism group exceeds the Hurwitz bound. This curve has many Galois points.     

Harness processes and harmonic crystals

In the Hammersley harness processes the R$\mathbb{R}$-valued height at each site i∈Z^d$i\in {\mathbb{Z}}^d$ is updated at rate 1 to an average of the neighboring heights plus a centered random variable (the noise). We construct the process “a la Harris” simultaneously for all times and boxes contained in Z^d${\mathbb{Z}}^d$. With this representation we compute covariances and show L²$L^2$ and almost sure time and space convergence of the process. In particular, the process started from the flat configuration and viewed from the height at the origin converges to an invariant measure. In dimension three and higher, the process itself converges to an invariant measure in L²$L^2$ at speed t^1−d/2$t^{1-d/2}$ (this extends the convergence established by Hsiao). When the noise is Gaussian the limiting measures are Gaussian fields (harmonic crystals) and are also reversible for the process.     

Transformation formulas for fractional Brownian motion

We derive a Molchan–Golosov-type integral transform which changes fractional Brownian motion of arbitrary Hurst index K$K$ into fractional Brownian motion of index H$H$. Integration is carried out over [0,t]$[0,t]$, t>0$t>0$. The formula is derived in the time domain. Based on this transform, we construct a prelimit which converges in L²(P)$L^2\left(\mathbb{P}\right)$-sense to an analogous, already known Mandelbrot–Van Ness-type integral transform, where integration is over (−∞,t]$(-\infty ,t]$, t>0$t>0$.