Rethinking polyhedrality for lindenstrauss spaces

We present a Lindenstrauss space with an extreme point that does not contain a subspace linearly isometric to c. This example disproves a result stated by Zippin in a paper published in 1969 and it shows that some classical characterizations of polyhedral Lindenstrauss spaces, based on Zippin’s result, are false, whereas some others remain unproven; then we provide a correct proof for those characterizations. Finally, we also disprove a characterization of polyhedral Lindenstrauss spaces given by Lazar, in terms of the compact norm-preserving extension of compact operators, and we give an equivalent condition for a Banach space X to satisfy this property.     

Selecting distances in arrangements of hyperplanes spanned by points

In this paper we consider a problem of distance selection in the arrangement of hyperplanes induced by n given points. Given a set of n points in d-dimensional space and a number k, , determine the hyperplane that is spanned by d points and at distance ranked by k from the origin. For the planar case we present an O(nlog²n) runtime algorithm using parametric search partly different from the usual approach [N. Megiddo, J. ACM 30 (1983) 852]. We establish a connection between this problem in 3-d and the well-known 3SUM problem using an auxiliary problem of counting the number of vertices in the arrangement of n planes that lie between two sheets of a hyperboloid. We show that the 3-d problem is almost 3SUM-hard and solve it by an O(n²log²n) runtime algorithm. We generalize these results to the d-dimensional (d4) space and consider also a problem of enumerating distances.     

Minimal 2-Fold Coverings of E d

Let N(k, d) be the smallest positive integer such that given any finite collection of open halfspaces which k-fold coversE ^d , there exists a subcollection of cardinality less than or equal toN(k,d) which k-fold coversE ^d . A well-known corollary to Helly's theorem proves N(1,d) =d+1. This provides an inductive base from which we show N(k; d) exists for all positive integers k.Our main result is .     

Minimal Simplicial Self-maps of the 2-Sphere

For any d (resp. for almost all d) we compute the least number (d) of vertices which a triangulation K of the 2-sphere (resp. any other orientable surface) must have in order that there exists a degree d simplicial map from K to the 4-vertex 2-sphere. We also prove an analogous result for uniquely 4-colourable Ks.     

A lower bound for the <Emphasis Type="Italic">r</Emphasis>-order of a matrix modulo <Emphasis Type="Italic">N</Emphasis>

For a positive integer N, we define the N-rank of a non singular integer d × d matrix A to be the maximum integer r such that there exists a minor of order r whose determinant is not divisible by N. Given a positive integer r, we study the growth of the minimum integer k, such that A ^k − I has N-rank at most r, as a function of N. We show that this integer k goes to infinity faster than log N if and only if for every eigenvalue λ which is not a root of unity, the sum of the dimensions of the eigenspaces relative to eigenvalues which are multiplicatively dependent with λ and are not roots of unity, plus the dimensions of the eigenspaces relative to eigenvalues which are roots of unity, does not exceed d − r − 1. This result will be applied to recover a recent theorem of Luca and Shparlinski [6] which states that the group of rational points of an ordinary elliptic curve E over a finite field with q ⁿ elements is almost cyclic, in a sense to be defined, when n goes to infinity. We will also extend this result to the product of two elliptic curves over a finite field and show that the orders of the groups of rational points of two non isogenous elliptic curves are almost coprime when n approaches infinity. Author’s address: Dipartimento di Matematica e Informatica, Via Delle Scienze 206, 33100 Udine, Italy     

On distance Gray codes

A Gray code of size n is a cyclic sequence of all binary words of length n such that two consecutive words differ exactly in one position. We say that the Gray code is a distance code if the Hamming distance between words located at distance k from each other is equal to d. The distance property generalizes the familiar concepts of a locally balanced Gray code. We prove that there are no distance Gray codes with d = 1 for k > 1. Some examples of constructing distance Gray codes are given. For one infinite series of parameters, it is proved that there are no distance Gray codes.     

Threshold phenomena in the transient behaviour of Markovian models of communication networks and databases

This paper accompanies a talk given at the Workshop on Mathematical Methods in Queueing Networks held at the Mathematical Sciences Institute at Cornell University in August 1988. In earlier work we had exhibited a threshold phenomenon in the transient behaviour of a closed network of ./M/1 nodes: When there areN customers circulating, and the initial state isx, letd _x ^N (t) denote the total variation distance between the distribution at timet and the stationary distribution. Let d^N(t) = max _x d _x ^N (t). We explicitly founda _N proportional toN such thatd ^N(ta_N)1 forevery t<1, andd ^N(ta_N)0 forevery t>1. Thus it appears that the network has not yet converged to stationarity uptoa _N , but has converged to stationarity aftera _N , soa _N can be naturally interpreted as the settling time of the network. Here we briefly deal with some other similar models — closed networks of ./M/m nodes, a well studied model for circuit switched networks, and a model of Mitra for studying concurrency control in databases. Similar threshold phenomena are established in the transient behaviour of these models.Research supported by the National Science Foundation, Grant No. NCR 8710840.     

Joint quasimodes,positive entropy,and quantum unique ergodicity

We study joint quasimodes of the Laplacian and one Hecke operator on compact congruence surfaces, and give conditions on the orders of the quasimodes that guarantee positive entropy on almost every ergodic component of the corresponding semiclassical measures. Together with the measure classification result of (Lindenstrauss, Ann Math (2) 163(1):165–219, 2006), this implies Quantum Unique Ergodicity for such functions. Our result is optimal with respect to the dimension of the space from which the quasi-mode is constructed. We also study equidistribution for sequences of joint quasimodes of the two partial Laplacians on compact irreducible quotients of \({\mathbb {H}}\times {\mathbb {H}}\) .     

Some geometric applications of the beta distribution

Let be the angle between a line and a random k-space in Euclidean n-space R ⁿ. Then the random variable cos² has the beta distribution. This result is applied to show (1) in R ⁿthere are exponentially many (in n) lines going through the origin so that any two of them are nearly perpendicular, (2) any N-point set of diameter d in R ⁿlies between two parallel hyperplanes distance 2d{(log N)/(n-1)}^1/2 apart and (3) an improved version of a lemma of Johnson and Lindenstrauss (1984, Contemp. Math., 26, 189–206). A simple estimate of the area of a spherical cap, and an area-formula for a neighborhood of a great circle on a sphere are also given.     

Brownian confinement and pinning in a Poissonian potential. II

Summary We continue our study ofd-dimensional Brownian motion in a soft repulsive Poissonian potential over a long time interval [0,t]. We prove here a pinning effect: for typical configuratons, with probability tending to 1 ast tends to , the particle gets trapped close to locations of near minima of certain variational problems. These locations lie at distances growing almost linearly witht from the origin, and the particle gets pinned within distance smaller than any positive power oft of one such location. In dimension 1, we can push further our estimates and show that in a suitable sense, the particle gets trapped with high probability, within time t and within distance (logt)²⁺ from a suitable location at distance of ordert/(logt)³ from the origin.This article was processed by the author using the LATEX style filepljour1m from Springer-Verlag     

Polarities of G. Higman's symmetric design and a strongly regular graph on 176 vertices

We investigate the polarities of G. Higman's symmetric 2-(176, 50, 14) design and find that there are two of them (up to conjugacy), one having 80 and the other 176 absolute points. From the latter we can derive a strongly regular graph with parameters (v, k, , )=(176, 49, 12, 14). Its group of automorphisms is Sym(8) with orbits of size 8 and 168 on the vertices. It does not carry a partial geometry or a delta space, and is not the result of mergingd=1 andd=2 in a distance regular graph with diameter 3 and girth 6 on 176 vertices.     

Some graft transformations and its application on a distance spectrum

Let D(G)=(d_i,j)_n×n denote the distance matrix of a connected graph G with order n, where d_ij is equal to the distance between v_i and v_j in G. The largest eigenvalue of D(G) is called the distance spectral radius of graph G, denoted by ?(G). In this paper, we give some graft transformations that decrease and increase ?(G) and prove that the graph (obtained from the star S_n on n (n is not equal to 4, 5) vertices by adding an edge connecting two pendent vertices) has minimal distance spectral radius among unicyclic graphs on n vertices; while (obtained from a triangle K₃ by attaching pendent path P_n−3 to one of its vertices) has maximal distance spectral radius among unicyclic graphs on n vertices.     

On strongly degenerate complementary cones and solution rays

In this paper we show that ifA is a matrix in the class of matricesE(d), for ad R ⁿ ,d > 0, introduced by Garcia, then the boundary of the set ofq R ⁿ for which the linear complementarity problem (q, A) has a solution is equal to the union of all strongly degenerate cones of (I, -A). This is a generalization of a similar result for copositive plus matrices observed by Cottle. We also study some related questions.On leave from Indian Statistical Service, Government of India.     

A variational characterisation of spherical designs

In this paper we first establish a new variational characterisation of spherical designs: it is shown that a set , where , is a spherical L-design if and only if a certain non-negative quantity A_L,N(X_N) vanishes. By combining this result with a known “sampling theorem” for the sphere, we obtain the main result, which is that if is a stationary point set of A_L,N whose “mesh norm” satisfies h_XN<1/(L+1), then X_N is a spherical L-design. The latter result seems to open a pathway to the elusive problem of proving (for fixed d) the existence of a spherical L-design with a number of points N of order (L+1)^d. A numerical example with d=2 and L=19 suggests that computational minimisation of A_L,N can be a valuable tool for the discovery of new spherical designs for moderate and large values of L.     

An Elementary Approach to the Twin Primes Problem

Hardy-Littlewood [4] conjectured an asymptotic formula for the number of prime pairs (twin primes) (p, p+2d) with p+2dy, where d N is fixed and y . Up to now, no one has been able to prove this conjecture, but employing Hardy-Littlewoods circle method, Lavrik [5] showed that in a certain sense this formula holds true for almost-all dy/2.In the present paper, we use a completely different method to prove Lavriks almost-all result. Our method is based on an elementary approach developed by Pan Chengdong [7] to the twin primes problem. By a slight modification of our method, we get a corresponding almost-all result for the binary Goldbach problem. From this, according to [3], we derive Vinogradovs [8] well-known Three-Primes-Theorem.     

An Elementary Approach to the Twin Primes Problem

Hardy-Littlewood [4] conjectured an asymptotic formula for the number of prime pairs (twin primes) (p, p+2d) with p+2dy, where d N is fixed and y . Up to now, no one has been able to prove this conjecture, but employing Hardy-Littlewoods circle method, Lavrik [5] showed that in a certain sense this formula holds true for almost-all dy/2.In the present paper, we use a completely different method to prove Lavriks almost-all result. Our method is based on an elementary approach developed by Pan Chengdong [7] to the twin primes problem. By a slight modification of our method, we get a corresponding almost-all result for the binary Goldbach problem. From this, according to [3], we derive Vinogradovs [8] well-known Three-Primes-Theorem.     

Two remarks on the Burr–Erdős conjecture

The Ramsey number r(H) of a graph H is the minimum positive integer N such that every two-coloring of the edges of the complete graph K_N on N vertices contains a monochromatic copy of H. A graph H is d-degenerate if every subgraph of H has minimum degree at most d. Burr and Erdős in 1975 conjectured that for each positive integer d there is a constant c_d such that r(H)≤c_dn for every d-degenerate graph H on n vertices. We show that for such graphs , improving on an earlier bound of Kostochka and Sudakov. We also study Ramsey numbers of random graphs, showing that for d fixed, almost surely the random graph G(n,d/n) has Ramsey number linear in n. For random bipartite graphs, our proof gives nearly tight bounds.     

A Volume Formual for Medial Sections of Simplices

Let S _d be a d-dimensional simplex in R ^d , and let H be an affine hyperplane of R ^d . We say that H is a medial hyperplane of S _d if the distance between H and any vertex of S _d is the same constant. The intersection of S _d and a medial hyperplane is called a medial section of S _d . In this paper we give a simple formula for the (d-1)-volume of any medial section of S _d in terms of the lengths of the edges of S _d . This extends the result of Yetter from the three-dimensional case to arbitrary dimension. We also show that a generalization of the obtained formula measures the volume of the intersection of some analogously chosen medial affine subspace of R ^d and the simplex.     

On the dimension of bivariate spline spaces of smoothnessr and degreed=3r+1

Summary We consider the well-known spaces of bivariate piecewise polynomials of degreed defined over arbitrary triangulations of a polygonal domain and possessingr continuous derivatives globally. To date, dimension formulae for such spaces have been established only whend3r+2, (except for the special case wherer=1 andd=4). In this paper we establish dimension formulae for allr1 andd=3r+1 for almost all triangulations.Dedicated to R. S. Varga on the occasion of his sixtieth birthdaySupported in part by National Science Foundation Grant DMS-8701121Supported in part by National Science Foundation Grant DMS-8602337