A classification theorem for Albert algebras

Let be a field whose characteristic is different from 2 and 3 and let be a quadratic extension. In this paper we prove that for a fixed, degree 3 central simple algebra over with an involution of the second kind over , the Jordan algebra , obtained through Tits' second construction is determined up to isomorphism by the class of in , thus settling a question raised by Petersson and Racine. As a consequence, we derive a ``Skolem Noether' type theorem for Albert algebras. We also show that the cohomological invariants determine the isomorphism class of , if is fixed.

     

Poisson transforms on vector bundles

Let be a connected real semisimple Lie group with finite center, and a maximal compact subgroup of . Let be an irreducible unitary representation of , and the associated vector bundle. In the algebra of invariant differential operators on the center of the universal enveloping algebra of induces a certain commutative subalgebra . We are able to determine the characters of . Given such a character we define a Poisson transform from certain principal series representations to the corresponding space of joint eigensections. We prove that for most of the characters this map is a bijection, generalizing a famous conjecture by Helgason which corresponds to the trivial representation.

     

Values of Gaussian hypergeometric series

Let be prime and let be the finite field with elements. In this note we investigate the arithmetic properties of the Gaussian hypergeometric functions

where and respectively are the quadratic and trivial characters of For all but finitely many rational numbers there exist two elliptic curves and for which these values are expressed in terms of the trace of the Frobenius endomorphism. We obtain bounds and congruence properties for these values. We also show, using a theorem of Elkies, that there are infinitely many primes for which is zero; however if or , then the set of such primes has density zero. In contrast, if or , then there are only finitely many primes for which Greene and Stanton proved a conjecture of Evans on the value of a certain character sum which from this point of view follows from the fact that is an elliptic curve with complex multiplication. We completely classify all such CM curves and give their corresponding character sums in the sense of Evans using special Jacobsthal sums. As a consequence of this classification, we obtain new proofs of congruences for generalized Apéry numbers, as well as a few new ones, and we answer a question of Koike by evaluating over every

     

Bilinear operators on Herz-type Hardy spaces

The authors prove that bilinear operators given by finite sums of products of Calderón-Zygmund operators on are bounded from into if and only if they have vanishing moments up to a certain order dictated by the target space. Here are homogeneous Herz-type Hardy spaces with and . As an application they obtain that the commutator of a Calderón-Zygmund operator with a BMO function maps a Herz space into itself.

     

An intersection number for the punctual Hilbert scheme of a surface

We compute the intersection number between two cycles and of complementary dimensions in the Hilbert scheme parameterizing subschemes of given finite length of a smooth projective surface . The -cycle corresponds to the set of finite closed subschemes the support of which has cardinality 1. The -cycle consists of the closed subschemes the support of which is one given point of the surface. Since is contained in , indirect methods are needed. The intersection number is , answering a question by H. Nakajima.

     

A bound on the geometric genus of projective varieties verifying certain flag conditions

Fix integers and let be the set of all integral, projective and nondegenerate varieties of degree and dimension in the projective space , such that, for all , does not lie on any variety of dimension and degree . We say that a variety satisfies a flag condition of type if belongs to . In this paper, under the hypotheses , we determine an upper bound , depending only on , for the number , where denotes the geometric genus of . In case and , the study of an upper bound for the geometric genus has a quite long history and, for , and , it has been introduced by Harris. We exhibit sharp results for particular ranges of our numerical data . For instance, we extend Halphen's theorem for space curves to the case of codimension two and characterize the smooth complete intersections of dimension in as the smooth varieties of maximal geometric genus with respect to appropriate flag condition. This result applies to smooth surfaces in . Next we discuss how far is from and show a sort of lifting theorem which states that, at least in certain cases, the varieties of maximal geometric genus must in fact lie on a flag such as , where denotes a subvariety of of degree and dimension . We also discuss further generalizations of flag conditions, and finally we deduce some bounds for Castelnuovo's regularity of varieties verifying flag conditions.

     

Asymptotics for minimal discrete energy on the sphere

We investigate the energy of arrangements of points on the surface of the unit sphere in that interact through a power law potential where and is Euclidean distance. With denoting the minimal energy for such -point arrangements we obtain bounds (valid for all ) for in the cases when and . For , we determine the precise asymptotic behavior of as . As a corollary, lower bounds are given for the separation of any pair of points in an -point minimal energy configuration, when . For the unit sphere in , we present two conjectures concerning the asymptotic expansion of that relate to the zeta function for a hexagonal lattice in the plane. We prove an asymptotic upper bound that supports the first of these conjectures. Of related interest, we derive an asymptotic formula for the partial sums of when (the divergent case).

     

Morita equivalence for crossed products by Hilbert -bimodules

We introduce the notion of the crossed product of a -algebra by a Hilbert -bimodule . It is shown that given a -algebra which carries a semi-saturated action of the circle group (in the sense that is generated by the spectral subspaces and ), then is isomorphic to the crossed product . We then present our main result, in which we show that the crossed products and are strongly Morita equivalent to each other, provided that and are strongly Morita equivalent under an imprimitivity bimodule satisfying as Hilbert -bimodules. We also present a six-term exact sequence for -groups of crossed products by Hilbert -bimodules.

     

Approximation by polynomials with nonnegative coefficients and the spectral theory of positive operators

For a compact subset of symmetric with respect to conjugation and a continuous function, we obtain sharp conditions on and that insure that can be approximated uniformly on by polynomials with nonnegative coefficients. For a real Banach space, a closed but not necessarily normal cone with , and a bounded linear operator with , we use these approximation theorems to investigate when the spectral radius of belongs to its spectrum . A special case of our results is that if is a Hilbert space, is normal and the 1-dimensional Lebesgue measure of is zero, then . However, we also give an example of a normal operator (where is unitary and ) for which and .

     

Weak*-closedness of subspaces of Fourier-Stieltjes algebras and weak*-continuity of the restriction map

Let be a locally compact group and the Fourier-Stieltjes algebra of . We study the problem of how weak*-closedness of some translation invariant subspaces of is related to the structure of . Moreover, we prove that for a closed subgroup of , the restriction map from to is weak*-continuous only when is open in .

     

On the classification of irregular surfaces of general type with nonbirational bicanonical map

The present paper is devoted to the classification of irregular surfaces of general type with and nonbirational bicanonical map. Our main result is that, if is such a surface and if is minimal with no pencil of curves of genus , then is the symmetric product of a curve of genus , and therefore and . Furthermore we obtain some results towards the classification of minimal surfaces with . Such surfaces have , and we show that if and only if is the symmetric product of a curve of genus . We also classify the minimal surfaces with with a pencil of curves of genus , proving in particular that for those one has .

     

Factorisation in nest algebras. II

The main result of this paper is Theorem 5, which provides a necessary and sufficient condition on a positive operator for the existence of an operator in the nest algebra of a nest satisfying (resp. . In Section 3 we give a new proof of a result of Power concerning outer factorisation of operators. We also show that a positive operator has the property that there exists for every nest an operator in satisfying (resp. ) if and only if is a Fredholm operator. In Section 4 we show that for a given operator in there exists an operator in satisfying if and only if the range of is equal to the range of some operator in . We also determine the algebraic structure of the set of ranges of operators in . Let be the set of positive operators for which there exists an operator in satisfying . In Section 5 we obtain information about this set. In particular we discuss the following question: Assume and are positive operators such that and belongs to . Which further conditions permit us to conclude that belongs to ?

     

Boundary slopes of punctured tori in 3-manifolds

Let be an irreducible 3-manifold with a torus boundary component , and suppose that are the boundary slopes on of essential punctured tori in , with their boundaries on . We show that the intersection number of and is at most . Moreover, apart from exactly four explicit manifolds , which contain pairs of essential punctured tori realizing and 6 respectively, we have . It follows immediately that if is atoroidal, while the manifolds obtained by - and -Dehn filling on are toroidal, then , and unless is one of the four examples mentioned above.

Let be the class of 3-manifolds such that is irreducible, atoroidal, and not a Seifert fibre space. By considering spheres, disks and annuli in addition to tori, we prove the following. Suppose that , where has a torus component , and . Let be slopes on such that . Then . The exterior of the Whitehead sister link shows that this bound is best possible.

     

Generalized Hestenes' Lemma and extension of functions

Suppose we have an -jet field on which is a Whitney field on the nonsingular part of . We show that, under certain hypotheses about the relationship between geodesic and euclidean distance on , if the field is flat enough at the singular part , then it is a Whitney field on (the order of flatness required depends on the coefficients in the hypotheses). These hypotheses are satisfied when is subanalytic. In Section II, we show that a function on can be extended to one on if the differential goes to faster than the order of divergence of the principal curvatures of and if the first covariant derivative of is sufficiently flat. For the general case of functions with , we give a similar result for in Section III.

     

Topological centers of certain dual algebras

Let be a Banach algebra with a bounded approximate identity. Let and be, respectively, the topological centers of the algebras and . In this paper, for weakly sequentially complete Banach algebras, in particular for the group and Fourier algebras and , we study the sets , , the relations between them and with several other subspaces of or .

     

The Mizohata complex

This paper deals with the local solvability of systems of first order linear partial differential equations defined by a germ at of a -valued, formally integrable (), 1-form with nondegenerate Levi form. More precisely, the size of the obstruction to the solvability, for -forms , of the equation

where is a given -form satisfying is estimated in terms of the De Rham cohomology relative to

     

Induction theorems on the stable rationality of the center of the ring of generic matrices

Following Procesi and Formanek, the center of the division ring of generic matrices over the complex numbers is stably equivalent to the fixed field under the action of , of the function field of the group algebra of a -lattice, denoted by . We study the question of the stable rationality of the center over the complex numbers when is a prime, in this module theoretic setting. Let be the normalizer of an -sylow subgroup of . Let be a -lattice. We show that under certain conditions on , induction-restriction from to does not affect the stable type of the corresponding field. In particular, and are stably isomorphic and the isomorphism preserves the -action. We further reduce the problem to the study of the localization of at the prime ; all other primes behave well. We also present new simple proofs for the stable rationality of over , in the cases and .

     

Connections with prescribed first Pontrjagin form

Let be a principal bundle over a manifold of dimension . If , then we prove that every differential 4-form representing the first Pontrjagin class of is the Pontrjagin form of some connection on .     

Tauberian theorems and stability of solutions of the Cauchy problem

Let be a bounded, strongly measurable function with values in a Banach space , and let be the singular set of the Laplace transform in . Suppose that is countable and uniformly for , as , for each in . It is shown that

as , for each in ; in particular, if is uniformly continuous. This result is similar to a Tauberian theorem of Arendt and Batty. It is obtained by applying a result of the authors concerning local stability of bounded semigroups to the translation semigroup on , and it implies several results concerning stability of solutions of Cauchy problems.

     

Widths of Subgroups

We say that the width of an infinite subgroup in is if there exists a collection of essentially distinct conjugates of such that the intersection of any two elements of the collection is infinite and is maximal possible. We define the width of a finite subgroup to be . We prove that a quasiconvex subgroup of a negatively curved group has finite width. It follows that geometrically finite surfaces in closed hyperbolic -manifolds satisfy the -plane property for some .