Saari's conjecture for the collinear -body problem

In 1970 Don Saari conjectured that the only solutions of the Newtonian -body problem that have constant moment of inertia are the relative equilibria. We prove this conjecture in the collinear case for any potential that involves only the mutual distances. Furthermore, in the case of homogeneous potentials, we show that the only collinear and non-zero angular momentum solutions are homographic motions with central configurations.

     

Saari's conjecture is true for generic vector fields

The simplest non-collision solutions of the -body problem are the ``relative equilibria', in which each body follows a circular orbit around the centre of mass and the shape formed by the bodies is constant. It is easy to see that the moment of inertia of such a solution is constant. In 1970, D. Saari conjectured that the converse is also true for the planar Newtonian -body problem: relative equilibria are the only constant-inertia solutions. A computer-assisted proof for the 3-body case was recently given by R. Moeckel, Trans. Amer. Math. Soc. (2005). We present a different kind of answer: proofs that several generalisations of Saari's conjecture are generically true. Our main tool is jet transversality, including a new version suitable for the study of generic potential functions.

     

Recasting the Elliott conjecture

Let A be a simple, unital, finite, and exact C^*-algebra which absorbs the Jiang–Su algebra tensorially. We prove that the Cuntz semigroup of A admits a complete order embedding into an ordered semigroup which is obtained from the Elliott invariant in a functorial manner. We conjecture that this embedding is an isomorphism, and prove the conjecture in several cases. In these same cases— -stable algebras all—we prove that the Elliott conjecture in its strongest form is equivalent to a conjecture which appears much weaker. Outside the class of -stable C^*-algebras, this weaker conjecture has no known counterexamples, and it is plausible that none exist. Thus, we reconcile the still intact principle of Elliott’s classification conjecture—that -theoretic invariants will classify separable and nuclear C^*-algebras—with the recent appearance of counterexamples to its strongest concrete form. Research supported by the DGI MEC-FEDER through Project MTM2005-00934, and the Comissionat per Universitats i Recerca de la Generalitat de Catalunya. A. S. Toms was also supported in part by an NSERC Discovery Grant.     

On relations between zeros of Galois polynomials

A conjecture ofH. Kleiman says that over certain fields a Galois equation of degree 3 is uniquely determined by its root polynomials. We prove this conjecture for prime degrees 3 and a somewhat smaller class of fields than Kleiman's. In this situation, the ideal of all relations between zeros of the equation has a basis containing root polynomials only, not the equation itself. Giving a large class of counterexamples of degree 4, we disprove Kleiman's conjecture in general.     

Weakly abelian lattice-ordered groups

Every nilpotent lattice-ordered group is weakly Abelian; i.e., satisfies the identity . In 1984, V. M. Kopytov asked if every weakly Abelian lattice-ordered group belongs to the variety generated by all nilpotent lattice-ordered groups [The Black Swamp Problem Book, Question 40]. In the past 15 years, all attempts have centred on finding counterexamples. We show that two constructions of weakly Abelian lattice-ordered groups fail to be counterexamples. They include all preiously considered potential counterexamples and also many weakly Abelian ordered free groups on finitely many generators. If every weakly Abelian ordered free group on finitely many generators belongs to the variety generated by all nilpotent lattice-ordered groups, then every weakly Abelian lattice-ordered group belongs to this variety. This paper therefore redresses the balance and suggests that Kopytov's problem is even more intriguing.

     

Convergence study of the Chorin-Marsden formula

Using the fundamental solution of the heat equation, we give an expression of the solutions to two-dimensional initial-boundary value problems of the Navier-Stokes equations, where the vorticity is expressed in terms of a Poisson integral, a Newtonian potential, and a single layer potential. The density of the single layer potential is the solution to an integral equation of Volterra type along the boundary. We prove there is a unique solution to the integral equation. One fractional time step approximation is given, based on this expression. Error estimates are obtained for linear and nonlinear problems. The order of convergence is for the Navier-Stokes equations. The result is in the direction of justifying the Chorin-Marsden formula for vortex methods. It is shown that the density of the vortex sheet is twice the tangential velocity for the half plane, while in general the density differs from it by one additional term.

     

Existence of Isoperimetric Sets with Densities “Converging from Below” on $${\mathbb {R}}^N$$

In this paper, we consider the isoperimetric problem in the space \({\mathbb {R}}^N\) with a density. Our result states that, if the density f is lower semi-continuous and converges to a limit \(a>0\) at infinity, with \(f\le a\) far from the origin, then isoperimetric sets exist for all volumes. Several known results or counterexamples show that the present result is essentially sharp. The special case of our result for radial and increasing densities positively answers a conjecture of Morgan and Pratelli (Ann Glob Anal Geom 43(4):331–365, 2013.     

On 4-Reflective Complex Analytic Planar Billiards

The famous conjecture of Ivrii (Funct Anal Appl 14(2):98–106, 1980) says that in every billiard with infinitely-smooth boundary in a Euclidean space the set of periodic orbits has measure zero. In the present paper we study its complex analytic version for quadrilateral orbits in two dimensions, with reflections from holomorphic curves. We present the complete classification of 4-reflective complex analytic counterexamples: billiards formed by four holomorphic curves in the projective plane that have open set of quadrilateral orbits. This extends the author’s previous result Glutsyuk (Moscow Math J 14(2):239–289, 2014) classifying 4-reflective complex planar algebraic counterexamples. We provide applications to real planar billiards: classification of 4-reflective germs of real planar \(C^4\)-smooth pseudo-billiards; solutions of Tabachnikov’s Commuting Billiard Conjecture and the 4-reflective case of Plakhov’s Invisibility Conjecture (both in two dimensions; the boundary is required to be piecewise \(C^4\)-smooth). We provide a survey and a small technical result concerning higher number of complex reflections.     

On an elliptic attractor in an asymptotically symmetric unbounded domain in RFormula

We study the positive solutions of a semilinear elliptic problemin an asymptotically symmetric unbounded domain ₊ in ⁴. Theexistence of the global attractor for the trajectory dynamicalsystem associated with this problem is proved. Based on therecent development of the De Giorgi conjecture, the symmetrizationand stabilization properties of positive solutions as |x| arealso established in the four-dimensional case.     

Durfee-type bound for some non-degenerate complete intersection singularities

The Milnor number, \(\mu (X,0)\), and the singularity genus, \(p_g(X,0)\), are fundamental invariants of isolated hypersurface singularities (more generally, of local complete intersections). The long standing Durfee conjecture (and its generalization) predicted the inequality \(\mu (X,0)\ge (n+1)!p_g(X,0)\), here \(n=\dim (X,0)\). Recently we have constructed counterexamples, proposed a corrected bound and verified it for the homogeneous complete intersections. In the current paper we treat the case of germs with Newton-non-degenerate principal part when the Newton diagrams are “large enough”, i.e. they are large multiples of some other diagrams. In the case of local complete intersections we prove the corrected inequality, while in the hypersurface case we prove an even stronger inequality.     

On the direct product conjecture for sigma invariants

We show that the direct product conjecture for ⁿ(G; ), whereG is the direct product of two groups of type FP_n, holds forn = 3 and give counterexamples for n 4. Previously, counter-exampleswere known only for a related conjecture involving the homotopical-invariants, where the conjecture already fails for n 3.     

Some remarks related to De Giorgi's conjecture

For several classes of functions including the special case , we obtain boundedness and symmetry results for solutions of the problem defined on . Our results complement a number of recent results related to a conjecture of De Giorgi.

     

When a characteristic function generates a Gabor frame

We investigate the characterization problem which asks for a classification of all the triples (a,b,c) such that the Gabor system is a frame for . We present a new approach to this problem. With the help of a set-valued mapping defined on certain union of intervals, we are able to provide a complete solution for the case of ab being a rational number. For the irrational case, we prove that the classification problem can also be completely settled if the union of some intervals obtained from the set-valued mapping becomes stabilized after finitely many times of iterations, which we conjecture is always true.     

Higher rank case of Dwork's conjecture

In this paper, we study the higher rank case of Dwork's conjecture on the -adic meromorphic continuation of the pure slope L-functions arising from the slope decomposition of an overconvergent F-crystal. Our main result is to reduce the general case of the conjecture to the special case when the pure slope part has rank one and when the base space is the simplest affine -space.

     

Gear composition and the stable set polytope

We present a new graph composition that produces a graph G from a given graph H and a fixed graph B called gear and we study its polyhedral properties. This composition yields counterexamples to a conjecture on the facial structure of when G is claw-free.     

A remark on a conjecture of Borwein and Choi

We prove the remaining case of a conjecture of Borwein and Choi concerning an estimate on the square of the number of solutions to for a squarefree integer .

     

Volumes of complementary projections of convex polytopes

The centrally symmetric convex polytopes whose images under orthogonal projection on to any pair of orthogonal complementary subspaces ofE ^d have numerically equal volumes are shown hare to be certain cartesian products of polygons and line segments. Ford3, the general projection property in fact follows from that for pairs of hyperplanes and lines. A conjecture is made about the problem in the non-centrally symmetric case.     

The covariogram determines three-dimensional convex polytopes

The cross covariogram g_K,L of two convex sets is the function which associates to each the volume of the intersection of K with L+x. The problem of determining the sets from this function is relevant in stochastic geometry, in probability and it is equivalent to a particular case of the phase retrieval problem in Fourier analysis. It is also relevant for the inverse problem of determining the atomic structure of a quasicrystal from its X-ray diffraction image. The two main results of this paper are that g_K,K determines three-dimensional convex polytopes K and that g_K,L determines both K and L when K and L are convex polyhedral cones satisfying certain assumptions. These results settle a conjecture of G. Matheron in the class of convex polytopes. Further results regard the known counterexamples in dimension n4.     

Small deviations, JIT sequencing and symmetric case of Fraenkel's conjecture

We prove Fraenkel's conjecture for the special case of symmetric words, and show that this proof implies the conjecture of Brauner and Crama [Facts and questions about the maximum deviation just-in-time scheduling problem, Discrete Appl. Math. 134 (2004) 25-50] concerning instances of the just-in-time sequencing problem with maximum deviation .