A non-Abelian analogue of Whitney’s 2-isomorphism theorem

We give a non-Abelian analogue of Whitney’s 2-isomorphism theorem for graphs. Whitney’s theorem states that the cycle space determines a graph up to 2-isomorphism. Instead of considering the cycle space of a graph which is an Abelian object, we consider a mildly non-Abelian object, the 2-truncation of the group algebra of the fundamental group of the graph considered as a subalgebra of the 2-truncation of the group algebra of the free group on the edges. The analogue of Whitney’s theorem is that this is a complete invariant of 2-edge connected graphs: let G, G′ be 2-edge connected finite graphs; if there is a bijective correspondence between the edges of G and G′ that induces equality on the 2-truncations of the group algebras of the fundamental groups, then G and G′ are isomorphic.     

On Some Variants of Theorems of Schur and Baer

A well-known theorem of I. Schur states that if G is a group and G/ζ(G) is finite then G′ is finite. We obtain an analogue of this, and theorems due to R. Baer and P. Hall, for groups G that have subgroups A of Aut(G) such that A/Inn(G) is finite.     

Nonrepetitive colorings of trees

A coloring of the vertices of a graph G is nonrepetitive if no path in G forms a sequence consisting of two identical blocks. The minimum number of colors needed is the Thue chromatic number, denoted by π(G). A famous theorem of Thue asserts that π(P)=3 for any path P with at least four vertices. In this paper we study the Thue chromatic number of trees. In view of the fact that π(T) is bounded by 4 in this class we aim to describe the 4-chromatic trees. In particular, we study the 4-critical trees which are minimal with respect to this property. Though there are many trees T with π(T)=4 we show that any of them has a sufficiently large subdivision H such that π(H)=3. The proof relies on Thue sequences with additional properties involving palindromic words. We also investigate nonrepetitive edge colorings of trees. By a similar argument we prove that any tree has a subdivision which can be edge-colored by at most Δ+1 colors without repetitions on paths.     

On an equivariant analogue of the monodromy zeta function

We offer an equivariant analogue of the monodromy zeta function of a germ invariant with respect to an action of a finite group G as an element of the Grothendieck ring of finite (?×G)-sets. We state equivariant analogues of the Sebastiani-Thom theorem and of the A’Campo formula.     

Edges not contained in triangles and the distribution of contractible edges in a 4-connected graph

We prove results concerning the distribution of 4-contractible edges in a 4-connected graph G in connection with the edges of G not contained in a triangle. As a corollary, we show that if G is 4-regular 4-connected graph, then the number of 4-contractible edges of G is at least one half of the number of edges of G not contained in a triangle.     

Recognizing digraphs of Kelly-width 2

Kelly-width is a parameter of digraphs recently proposed by Hunter and Kreutzer as a directed analogue of treewidth. We give an alternative characterization of digraphs of bounded Kelly-width in support of this analogy, and the first polynomial-time algorithm recognizing digraphs of Kelly-width 2. For an input digraph G=(V,A) the algorithm outputs a vertex ordering and a digraph H=(V,B) with A⊆B witnessing either that G has Kelly-width at most 2 or that G has Kelly-width at least 3, in time linear in H.     

Facial Nonrepetitive Vertex Coloring of Plane Graphs

A sequence is a repetition. A sequence S is nonrepetitive, if no subsequence of consecutive terms of S is a repetition. Let G be a plane graph. That is, a planar graph with a fixed embedding in the plane. A facial path consists of consecutive vertices on the boundary of a face. A facial nonrepetitive vertex coloring of a plane graph G is a vertex coloring such that the colors assigned to the vertices of any facial path form a nonrepetitive sequence. Let denote the minimum number of colors of a facial nonrepetitive vertex coloring of G. Harant and Jendrol’ conjectured that can be bounded from above by a constant. We prove that for any plane graph G.     

Clifford theory for graded fusion categories

We develop a categorical analogue of Clifford theory for strongly graded rings over graded fusion categories. We describe module categories over a fusion category graded by a group G as induced from module categories over fusion subcategories associated with the subgroups of G. We define invariant C _e -module categories and extensions of C _e -module categories. The construction of module categories over C is reduced to determining invariant module categories for subgroups of G and the indecomposable extensions of these module categories. We associate a G-crossed product fusion category to each G-invariant C _e -module category and give a criterion for a graded fusion category to be a group-theoretical fusion category. We give necessary and sufficient conditions for an indecomposable module category to be extendable.     

The local structure of tangent G-vector fields

We introduce a notion of equivariant index in order to describe the behavior of tangent G-vector fields on smooth G-manifolds near isolated zeros. Our methods result in a calculation of the monoid of G-homotopy classes of self-maps of the unit sphere S(V) in a real orthogonal (finite dimensional) G-module V, this being the unstable analogue of a classical result of Segal. During the course of our calculation, we prove general position results on tangent G-vector fields and obtain canonical local structures for such fields.     

Cauchy integral decomposition for harmonic forms

Let ann-dimensional differential form Ω be defined at points of aC ¹-smooth boundary π of a domainG ? ? ⁿ . Under what condition can Ω be represented as Ω = Ω₊ + Ω₊ + Ω_-, where Ω_± are forms insideG and outsideG, harmonic in the sense of Hodge? A necessary condition is that both restrictions Ω{inπ and *Ω{inπ be closed in the sense of currents. This condition, with an additional smoothness assumption, turns out to be sufficient as well. This is an analogue of the Cauchy integral decomposition of functions in the plane.     

The number of spanning trees of plane graphs with reflective symmetry

A plane graph is called symmetric if it is invariant under the reflection across some straight line (called symmetry axis). Let G be a symmetric plane graph. We prove that if there is no edge in G intersected by its symmetry axis then the number of spanning trees of G can be expressed in terms of the product of the number of spanning trees of two smaller graphs, each of which has about half the number of vertices of G.     

Almost equal group multiplications

In a recent paper entitled “A commutative analogue of the group ring” we introduced, for each finite group (G,⋅), a commutative graded Z-algebra R_(G,⋅) which has a close connection with the cohomology of (G,⋅). The algebra R_(G,⋅) is the quotient of a polynomial algebra by a certain ideal I_(G,⋅) and it remains a fundamental open problem whether or not the group multiplication ⋅ on G can always be recovered uniquely from the ideal I_(G,⋅).Suppose now that (G,×) is another group with the same underlying set G and identity element e∈G such that I_(G,⋅)=I_(G,×). Then we show here that the multiplications ⋅ and × are at least “almost equal” in a precise sense which renders them indistinguishable in terms of most of the standard group theory constructions. In particular in many cases (for example if (G,⋅) is Abelian or simple) this implies that the two multiplications are actually equal as was claimed in the previously cited paper.     

QUANDLE VARIETIES,GENERALIZED SYMMETRIC SPACES,AND <Emphasis Type="Italic">φ</Emphasis>-SPACES

We define a quandle variety as an irreducible algebraic variety Q endowed with an algebraically defined quandle operation ?. It can also be seen as an analogue of a generalized affine symmetric space or a regular s-manifold in algebraic geometry.Assume that Q is normal as an algebraic variety and that the action of its inner automorphism group Inn(Q) has a dense orbit. Then we show that there is an algebraic group G acting on Q with the same orbits as Inn(Q) such that each G-orbit is isomorphic to the quandle (G/H, ?φ) associated to the group G, an automorphism φ of G and a subgroup H of Gφ.     

The relaxed game chromatic index of k-degenerate graphs

The (r,d)-relaxed coloring game is a two-player game played on the vertex set of a graph G. We consider a natural analogue to this game on the edge set of G called the (r,d)-relaxed edge-coloring game. We consider this game on trees and more generally, on k-degenerate graphs. We show that if G is k-degenerate with Δ(G)=Δ, then the first player, Alice, has a winning strategy for this game with r=Δ+k-1 and d?2k²+4k.     

Clique partitions of distance multigraphs

We consider the minimum number of cliques needed to partition the edge set of D(G), the distance multigraph of a simple graph G. Equivalently, we seek to minimize the number of elements needed to label the vertices of a simple graph G by sets so that the distance between two vertices equals the cardinality of the intersection of their labels. We use a fractional analogue of this parameter to find lower bounds for the distance multigraphs of various classes of graphs. Some of the bounds are shown to be exact.     

Character tables and normal left coideal subalgebras

We continue studying properties of semisimple Hopf algebras H over algebraically closed fields of characteristic 0 resulting from their generalized character tables. We show that the generalized character table of H reflects normal left coideal subalgebras of H. These are the Hopf analogues of normal subgroups in the sense that they arise from Hopf quotients. We apply these ideas to prove Hopf analogues of known results in group theory. Among the rest we prove that columns of the character table are orthogonal and that all entries are algebraic integers. We analyze ‘semi-kernels’ and their relations to the character table. We prove a full analogue of the Burnside–Brauer theorem for almost cocommutative H. We also prove the Hopf algebras analogue of the following (Burnside) theorem: If G is a non-abelian simple group then {1} is the only conjugacy class of G which has prime power order.     

The combinatorial derivation and its inverse mapping

Let G be a group and P _G be the Boolean algebra of all subsets of G. A mapping Δ: P _G → P _G defined by Δ(A) = {g ∈ G: gA ∩ A is infinite} is called the combinatorial derivation. The mapping Δ can be considered as an analogue of the topological derivation d: P _X → P _X , A ? A ^d , where X is a topological space and A ^d is the set of all limit points of A. We study the behaviour of subsets of G under action of Δ and its inverse mapping ?. For example, we show that if G is infinite and I is an ideal in P _G such that Δ(A) ∈ I and ?(A) ? I for each A ∈ I then I = P _G .     

Multiple Recurrence in Quasirandom Groups

We establish a new mixing theorem for quasirandom groups (finite groups with no low-dimensional unitary representations) G which, informally speaking, asserts that if g, x are drawn uniformly at random from G, then the quadruple (g, x, gx, xg) behaves like a random tuple in G ⁴, subject to the obvious constraint that gx and xg are conjugate to each other. The proof is non-elementary, proceeding by first using an ultraproduct construction to replace the finitary claim on quasirandom groups with an infinitary analogue concerning a limiting group object that we call an ultra quasirandom group, and then using the machinery of idempotent ultrafilters to establish the required mixing property for such groups. Some simpler recurrence theorems (involving tuples such as (x, gx, xg)) are also presented, as well as some further discussion of specific examples of ultra quasirandom groups.     

Finite Weil representations and associated Hecke algebras

An algebra H(Gm) of double cosets is constructed for every finite Weil representation Gm. For the Clifford-Weil groups Gm=Cm(ρ) associated to some classical Type ρ of selfdual codes over a finite field, this algebra is shown to be commutative. Then the eigenspace decomposition of H(Cm(ρ)) acting on the space of degree N invariants of Cm(ρ) may be obtained from the kernels of powers of the coding theory analogue of the Siegel Φ-operator.