Hitting Simplices with Points in ℝ3

The so-called first selection lemma states the following: given any set P of n points in ℝ ^d , there exists a point in ℝ ^d contained in at least c _d n ^d+1−O(n ^d ) simplices spanned by P, where the constant c _d depends on d. We present improved bounds on the first selection lemma in ℝ³. In particular, we prove that c ₃≥0.00227, improving the previous best result of c ₃≥0.00162 by Wagner (On k-sets and applications. Ph.D. thesis, ETH Zurich, 2003). This makes progress, for the three-dimensional case, on the open problems of Bukh et al. (Stabbing simplices by points and flats. Discrete Comput. Geom., 2010) (where it is proven that c ₃≤1/4⁴≈0.00390) and Boros and Füredi (The number of triangles covering the center of an n-set. Geom. Dedic. 17(1):69–77, 1984) (where the two-dimensional case was settled).     

Moments and Distribution of the Local Times of a Transient Random Walk on ℤ d

Consider an arbitrary transient random walk on ℤ ^d with d∈ℕ. Pick α∈[0,∞), and let L _n (α) be the spatial sum of the αth power of the n-step local times of the walk. Hence, L _n (0) is the range, L _n (1)=n+1, and for integers α, L _n (α) is the number of the α-fold self-intersections of the walk. We prove a strong law of large numbers for L _n (α) as n→∞. Furthermore, we identify the asymptotic law of the local time in a random site uniformly distributed over the range. These results complement and contrast analogous results for recurrent walks in two dimensions recently derived by Černy (Stoch. Proc. Appl. 117:262–270, 2007). Although these assertions are certainly known to experts, we could find no proof in the literature in this generality.      

Rates of Convergence of Means of Euclidean Functionals

Let L be the Euclidean functional with p-th power-weighted edges. Examples include the sum of the p-th power-weighted lengths of the edges in minimal spanning trees, traveling salesman tours, and minimal matchings. Motivated by the works of Steele, Redmond and Yukich (Ann. Appl. Probab. 4, 1057–1073, 1994, Stoch. Process. Appl. 61, 289–304, 1996) have shown that for n i.i.d. sample points {X ₁,…,X _n } from [0,1] ^d , L({X ₁,…,X _n })/n ^(d−p)/d converges a.s. to a finite constant. Here we bound the rate of convergence of EL({X ₁,…,X _n })/n ^(d−p)/d . Y. Koo supported by the BK21 project of the Department of Mathematics, Sungkyunkwan University. S. Lee supported by the BK21 project of the Department of Mathematics, Yonsei University.     

On the Union of Cylinders in Three Dimensions

We show that the combinatorial complexity of the union of n infinite cylinders in ℝ³, having arbitrary radii, is O(n ^2+ε ), for any ε>0; the bound is almost tight in the worst case, thus settling a conjecture of Agarwal and Sharir (Discrete Comput. Geom. 24:645–685, 2000), who established a nearly-quadratic bound for the restricted case of nearly congruent cylinders. Our result extends, in a significant way, the result of Agarwal and Sharir (Discrete Comput. Geom. 24:645–685, 2000), in particular, a simple specialization of our analysis to the case of nearly congruent cylinders yields a nearly-quadratic bound on the complexity of the union in that case, thus significantly simplifying the analysis in Agarwal and Sharir (Discrete Comput. Geom. 24:645–685, 2000). Finally, we extend our technique to the case of “cigars” of arbitrary radii (that is, Minkowski sums of line-segments and balls) and show that the combinatorial complexity of the union in this case is nearly-quadratic as well. This problem has been studied in Agarwal and Sharir (Discrete Comput. Geom. 24:645–685, 2000) for the restricted case where all cigars have (nearly) equal radii. Based on our new approach, the proof follows almost verbatim from the analysis for infinite cylinders and is significantly simpler than the proof presented in Agarwal and Sharir (Discrete Comput. Geom. 24:645–685, 2000).     

Tropical Hurwitz numbers

Hurwitz numbers count genus g, degree d covers of ℙ¹ with fixed branch locus. This equals the degree of a natural branch map defined on the Hurwitz space. In tropical geometry, algebraic curves are replaced by certain piece-wise linear objects called tropical curves. This paper develops a tropical counterpart of the branch map and shows that its degree recovers classical Hurwitz numbers. Further, the combinatorial techniques developed are applied to recover results of Goulden et al. (in Adv. Math. 198:43–92, 2005) and Shadrin et al. (in Adv. Math. 217(1):79–96, 2008) on the piecewise polynomial structure of double Hurwitz numbers in genus 0.     

Large Newforms of the Quantized Cat Map Revisited

We study the eigenfunctions of the quantized cat map, desymmetrized by Hecke operators. In the papers (Olofsson in Ann Henri Poincaré 10(6):1111–1139, 2009; Math Phys 286(3):1051–1072, 2009) it was observed that when the inverse of Planck’s constant is a prime exponent N = p ⁿ , with n > 2, half of these eigenfunctions become large at some points, and half remains small for all points. In this paper we study the large eigenfunctions more carefully. In particular, we answer the question of for which q the L ^q norms remain bounded as N goes to infinity. The answer is q ≤ 4.     

Rate of Approximation of Regular Convex Bodies by?Convex Algebraic Level Surfaces

We consider the problem of the approximation of regular convex bodies in ℝ ^d by level surfaces of convex algebraic polynomials. Hammer (in Mathematika 10, 67–71, 1963) verified that any convex body in ℝ ^d can be approximated by a level surface of a convex algebraic polynomial. In Jaen J. Approx. 1, 97–109, 2009 and subsequently in J. Approx. Theory 162, 628–637, 2010 a quantitative version of Hammer’s approximation theorem was given by showing that the order of approximation of convex bodies by convex algebraic level surfaces of degree n is \frac1n\frac{1}{n}. Moreover, it was also shown that whenever the convex body is not regular (that is, there exists a point on its boundary at which the convex body possesses two distinct supporting hyperplanes), then \frac1n\frac{1}{n} is essentially the sharp rate of approximation. This leads to the natural question whether this rate of approximation can be improved further when the convex body is regular. In this paper we shall give an affirmative answer to this question. It turns out that for regular convex bodies a o(1/n) rate of convergence holds. In addition, if the body satisfies the condition of C ²-smoothness the rate of approximation is O(\frac1n²)O(\frac{1}{n^{2}}).     

<Emphasis Type="Italic">C</Emphasis><Superscript>1+<Emphasis Type="Italic">α</Emphasis></Superscript>-Regularity for Two-Dimensional Almost-Minimal Sets in ℝ<Superscript><Emphasis Type="Italic">n</Emphasis></Superscript>

We give a new proof and a partial generalization of Jean Taylor’s result (Ann. Math. (2) 103(3), 489–539, 1976) that says that Almgren almost-minimal sets of dimension 2 in ℝ³ are locally C ^1+α -equivalent to minimal cones. The proof is rather elementary, but uses a local separation result proved in Ann. Fac. Sci. Toulouse 18(1), 65–246, 2009 and an extension of Reifenberg’s parameterization theorem (David et al. in Geom. Funct. Anal. 18, 1168–1235, 2008). The key idea is still that if X is the cone over an arc of small Lipschitz graph in the unit sphere, but X is not contained in a disk, we can use the graph of a harmonic function to deform X and substantially diminish its area. The local separation result is used to reduce to unions of cones over arcs of Lipschitz graphs. A good part of the proof extends to minimal sets of dimension 2 in ℝ ⁿ , but in this setting our final regularity result on E may depend on the list of minimal cones obtained as blow-up limits of E at a point.     

Jensen’s functional equation on the symmetric group S<Subscript>n</Subscript>

Two natural extensions of Jensen’s functional equation on the real line are the equations f(xy) + f(xy ⁻¹) =  2f(x) and f(xy) + f(y ⁻¹ x) =  2f(x), where f is a map from a multiplicative group G into an abelian additive group H. In a series of papers (see Ng in Aequationes Math 39:85–99, 1990; Ng in Aequationes Math 58:311–320, 1999; Ng in Aequationes Math 62:143–159, 2001), Ng solved these functional equations for the case where G is a free group and the linear group GL_n(R), R=\mathbbZ,\mathbbR{{GL_n(R), R=\mathbb{Z},\mathbb{R}}} , is a quadratically closed field or a finite field. He also mentioned, without a detailed proof, in the above papers and in (see Ng in Aequationes Math 70:131–153, 2005) that when G is the symmetric group S _n , the group of all solutions of these functional equations coincides with the group of all homomorphisms from (S _n , ·) to (H, + ). The aim of this paper is to give an elementary and direct proof of this fact.     

Traversing a Set of Points with a Minimum Number of Turns

Given a finite set of points S in ℝ ^d , consider visiting the points in S with a polygonal path which makes a minimum number of turns, or equivalently, has the minimum number of segments (links). We call this minimization problem the minimum link spanning path problem. This natural problem has appeared several times in the literature under different variants. The simplest one is that in which the allowed paths are axis-aligned. Let L(S) be the minimum number of links of an axis-aligned path for S, and let G _n ^d be an n×…×n grid in ℤ ^d . Kranakis et al. (Ars Comb. 38:177–192, 1994) showed that L(G _n ²)=2n−1 and and conjectured that, for all d≥3, We prove the conjecture for d=3 by showing the lower bound for L(G _n ³). For d=4, we prove that For general d, we give new estimates on L(G _n ^d ) that are very close to the conjectured value. The new lower bound of improves previous result by Collins and Moret (Inf. Process. Lett. 68:317–319, 1998), while the new upper bound of differs from the conjectured value only in the lower order terms. For arbitrary point sets, we include an exact bound on the minimum number of links needed in an axis-aligned path traversing any planar n-point set. We obtain similar tight estimates (within 1) in any number of dimensions d. For the general problem of traversing an arbitrary set of points in ℝ ^d with an axis-aligned spanning path having a minimum number of links, we present a constant ratio (depending on the dimension d) approximation algorithm. Work by A. Dumitrescu was partially supported by NSF CAREER grant CCF-0444188. Work by F. Hurtado was partially supported by projects MECMTM2006-01267 and Gen. Cat. 2005SGR00692. Work by P. Valtr was partially supported by the project 1M0545 of the Ministry of Education of the Czech Republic.     

An algorithmic approach to Ramanujan’s congruences

In this paper we present an algorithm that takes as input a generating function of the form $\prod_{\delta|M}\prod_{n=1}^{\infty}(1-q^{\delta n})^{r_{\delta}}=\sum_{n=0}^{\infty}a(n)q^{n}In this paper we present an algorithm that takes as input a generating function of the form ?_d|M?_n=1^￥(1-q^dn)^r_d=?_n=0^￥a(n)qⁿ\prod_{\delta|M}\prod_{n=1}^{\infty}(1-q^{\delta n})^{r_{\delta}}=\sum_{n=0}^{\infty}a(n)q^{n} and three positive integers m,t,p, and which returns true if a(mn+t) o 0 mod p,n 3 0a(mn+t)\equiv0\pmod{p},n\geq0, or false otherwise. Our method builds on work by Rademacher (Trans. Am. Math. Soc. 51(3):609–636, 1942), Kolberg (Math. Scand. 5:77–92, 1957), Sturm (Lecture Notes in Mathematics, pp. 275–280, Springer, Berlin/Heidelberg, 1987), Eichhorn and Ono (Proceedings for a Conference in Honor of Heini Halberstam, pp. 309–321, 1996).     

A Note About Critical Percolation on Finite Graphs

In this note we study the geometry of the largest component C₁\mathcal {C}_{1} of critical percolation on a finite graph G which satisfies the finite triangle condition, defined by Borgs et al. (Random Struct. Algorithms 27:137–184, 2005). There it is shown that this component is of size n ^2/3, and here we show that its diameter is n ^1/3 and that the simple random walk takes n steps to mix on it. By Borgs et al. (Ann. Probab. 33:1886–1944, 2005), our results apply to critical percolation on several high-dimensional finite graphs such as the finite torus \mathbbZ_n^d\mathbb{Z}_{n}^{d} (with d large and n→∞) and the Hamming cube {0,1} ⁿ .     

A direct approach to the weighted admissibility of observation operators for bounded analytic semigroups

In this note we adopt the approach in Bonnit et al. (Czechoslov. Math. J. 60(2):527–539, 2010) to give a direct proof of some recent results in Haak and Le Merdy (Houst. J. Math., 2005) and Haak and Kunstmann (SIAM J. Control Optim. 45:2094–2118, 2007) which characterizes the L ^p -admissibility of type α depending on p of unbounded observation operators for bounded analytic semigroups.     

A Bichromatic Incidence Bound and an Application

We prove a new, tight upper bound on the number of incidences between points and hyperplanes in Euclidean d-space. Given n points, of which k are colored red, there are O _d (m ^2/3 k ^2/3 n ^(d−2)/3+kn ^d−2+m) incidences between the k red points and m hyperplanes spanned by all n points provided that m=Ω(n ^d−2). For the monochromatic case k=n, this was proved by Agarwal and Aronov (Discrete Comput. Geom. 7(4):359–369, 1992).     

Optimal Partition Trees

We revisit one of the most fundamental classes of data structure problems in computational geometry: range searching. Matoušek (Discrete Comput. Geom. 10:157–182, 1993) gave a partition tree method for d-dimensional simplex range searching achieving O(n) space and O(n ^1−1/d ) query time. Although this method is generally believed to be optimal, it is complicated and requires O(n ^1+ε ) preprocessing time for any fixed ε>0. An earlier method by Matoušek (Discrete Comput. Geom. 8:315–334, 1992) requires O(nlogn) preprocessing time but O(n ^1−1/d log ^O(1) n) query time. We give a new method that achieves simultaneously O(nlogn) preprocessing time, O(n) space, and O(n ^1−1/d ) query time with high probability. Our method has several advantages:

Dilations and Completions for Gabor Systems

Let be a full rank time-frequency lattice in ℝ ^d ×ℝ ^d . In this note we first prove that any dual Gabor frame pair for a Λ-shift invariant subspace M can be dilated to a dual Gabor frame pair for the whole space L ²(ℝ ^d ) when the volume v(Λ) of the lattice Λ satisfies the condition v(Λ)≤1, and to a dual Gabor Riesz basis pair for a Λ-shift invariant subspace containing M when v(Λ)>1. This generalizes the dilation result in Gabardo and Han (J. Fourier Anal. Appl. 7:419–433, [2001]) to both higher dimensions and dual subspace Gabor frame pairs. Secondly, for any fixed positive integer N, we investigate the problem whether any Bessel–Gabor family G(g,Λ) can be completed to a tight Gabor (multi-)frame G(g,Λ)∪(∪ _j=1 ^N G(g _j ,Λ)) for L ²(ℝ ^d ). We show that this is true whenever v(Λ)≤N. In particular, when v(Λ)≤1, any Bessel–Gabor system is a subset of a tight Gabor frame G(g,Λ)∪G(h,Λ) for L ²(ℝ ^d ). Related results for affine systems are also discussed. Communicated by Chris Heil.     

Classification of Refinable Splines in ℝ d

A refinable spline in ℝ ^d is a compactly supported refinable function whose support can be decomposed into simplices such that the function is a polynomial on each simplex. The best-known refinable splines in ℝ ^d are the box splines. Refinable splines play a key role in many applications, such as numerical computation, approximation theory and computer-aided geometric design. Such functions have been classified in one dimension in Dai et al. (Appl. Comput. Harmon. Anal. 22(3), 374–381, 2007), Lawton et al. (Comput. Math. 3, 137–145, 1995). In higher dimensions Sun (J. Approx. Theory 86, 240–252, 1996) characterized those splines when the dilation matrices are of the form A=mI, where m∈ℤ and I is the identity matrix. For more general dilation matrices the problem becomes more complex. In this paper we give a complete classification of refinable splines in ℝ ^d for arbitrary dilation matrices A∈M _d (ℤ).     

Quasi-parabolic analytic transformations of <Emphasis Type="Bold">C</Emphasis><Superscript><Emphasis Type="Italic">n</Emphasis></Superscript>. Parabolic manifolds

In [Rong, F., Quasi-parabolic analytic transformations of C ⁿ , J. Math. Anal. Appl. 343 (2008), 99–109], we showed the existence of “parabolic curves” for certain quasi-parabolic analytic transformations of C ⁿ . Under some extra assumptions, we show the existence of “parabolic manifolds” for such transformations.