Anderson Polymer in a Fractional Brownian Environment: Asymptotic Behavior of the Partition Function

We consider the Anderson polymer partition function

$$\begin{aligned} u(t):=\mathbb {E}^X\left[ e^{\int _0^t \mathrm {d}B^{X(s)}_s}\right] \,, \end{aligned}$$

where \(\{B^{x}_t\,;\, t\ge 0\}_{x\in \mathbb {Z}^d}\) is a family of independent fractional Brownian motions all with Hurst parameter \(H\in (0,1)\), and \(\{X(t)\}_{t\in \mathbb {R}^{\ge 0}}\) is a continuous-time simple symmetric random walk on \(\mathbb {Z}^d\) with jump rate \(\kappa \) and started from the origin. \(\mathbb {E}^X\) is the expectation with respect to this random walk. We prove that when \(H\le 1/2\), the function u(t) almost surely grows asymptotically like \(e^{\lambda t}\), where \(\lambda >0\) is a deterministic number. More precisely, we show that as t approaches \(+\infty \), the expression \(\{\frac{1}{t}\log u(t)\}_{t\in \mathbb {R}^{>0}}\) converges both almost surely and in the \(\hbox {L}^1\) sense to some positive deterministic number \(\lambda \). For \(H>1/2\), we first show that \(\lim _{t\rightarrow \infty } \frac{1}{t}\log u(t)\) exists both almost surely and in the \(\hbox {L}^1\) sense and equals a strictly positive deterministic number (possibly \(+\infty \)); hence, almost surely u(t) grows asymptotically at least like \(e^{\alpha t}\) for some deterministic constant \(\alpha >0\). On the other hand, we also show that almost surely and in the \(\hbox {L}^1\) sense, \(\limsup _{t\rightarrow \infty } \frac{1}{t\sqrt{\log t}}\log u(t)\) is a deterministic finite real number (possibly zero), hence proving that almost surely u(t) grows asymptotically at most like \(e^{\beta t\sqrt{\log t}}\) for some deterministic positive constant \(\beta \). Finally, for \(H>1/2\) when \(\mathbb {Z}^d\) is replaced by a circle endowed with a Hölder continuous covariance function, we show that \(\limsup _{t\rightarrow \infty } \frac{1}{t}\log u(t)\) is a deterministic finite positive real number, hence proving that almost surely u(t) grows asymptotically at most like \(e^{c t}\) for some deterministic positive constant c.

     

Homoclinic Solutions for <Emphasis Type="Italic">p</Emphasis>(<Emphasis Type="Italic">t</Emphasis>)-Laplacian–Hamiltonian Systems Without Coercive Conditions

In this paper, we study the existence and multiplicity of homoclinic solutions for the following second-order p(t)-Laplacian–Hamiltonian systems

$$\frac{{\rm d}}{{\rm d}t}(|\dot{u}(t)|^{p(t)-2}\dot{u}(t))-a(t)|u(t)|^{p(t)-2}u(t)+\nabla W(t,u(t))=0,$$

where \({t \in \mathbb{R}}\), \({u \in \mathbb{R}^n}\), \({p \in C(\mathbb{R},\mathbb{R})}\) with p(t) > 1, \({a \in C(\mathbb{R},\mathbb{R})}\), \({W\in C^1(\mathbb{R}\times\mathbb{R}^n,\mathbb{R})}\) and \({\nabla W(t,u)}\) is the gradient of W(t, u) in u. The point is that, assuming that a(t) is bounded in the sense that there are constants \({0<\tau_1<\tau_2<\infty}\) such that \({\tau_1\leq a(t)\leq \tau_2 }\) for all \({t \in \mathbb{R}}\) and W(t, u) is of super-p(t) growth or sub-p(t) growth as \({|u|\rightarrow \infty}\), we provide two new criteria to ensure the existence and multiplicity of homoclinic solutions, respectively. Recent results in the literature are extended and significantly improved.

     

An Erdös–Révész Type Law of the Iterated Logarithm for Order Statistics of a Stationary Gaussian Process

Let \(\{X(t):t\in \mathbb R_+\}\) be a stationary Gaussian process with almost surely (a.s.) continuous sample paths, \(\mathbb E X(t) = 0, \mathbb E X^2(t) = 1\) and correlation function satisfying (i) \(r(t) = 1 - C|t|^{\alpha } + o(|t|^{\alpha })\) as \(t\rightarrow 0\) for some \(0\le \alpha \le 2\) and \(C>0\); (ii) \(\sup _{t\ge s}|r(t)|<1\) for each \(s>0\) and (iii) \(r(t) = O(t^{-\lambda })\) as \(t\rightarrow \infty \) for some \(\lambda >0\). For any \(n\ge 1\), consider n mutually independent copies of X and denote by \(\{X_{r:n}(t):t\ge 0\}\) the rth smallest order statistics process, \(1\le r\le n\). We provide a tractable criterion for assessing whether, for any positive, non-decreasing function \(f, \mathbb P(\mathscr {E}_f)=\mathbb P(X_{r:n}(t) > f(t)\, \text { i.o.})\) equals 0 or 1. Using this criterion we find, for a family of functions \(f_p(t)\) such that \(z_p(t)=\mathbb P(\sup _{s\in [0,1]}X_{r:n}(s)>f_p(t))=O((t\log ^{1-p} t)^{-1})\), that \(\mathbb P(\mathscr {E}_{f_p})= 1_{\{p\ge 0\}}\). Consequently, with \(\xi _p (t) = \sup \{s:0\le s\le t, X_{r:n}(s)\ge f_p(s)\}\), for \(p\ge 0\) we have \(\lim _{t\rightarrow \infty }\xi _p(t)=\infty \) and \(\limsup _{t\rightarrow \infty }(\xi _p(t)-t)=0\) a.s. Complementarily, we prove an Erdös–Révész type law of the iterated logarithm lower bound on \(\xi _p(t)\), namely, that \(\liminf _{t\rightarrow \infty }(\xi _p(t)-t)/h_p(t) = -1\) a.s. for \(p>1\) and \(\liminf _{t\rightarrow \infty }\log (\xi _p(t)/t)/(h_p(t)/t) = -1\) a.s. for \(p\in (0,1]\), where \(h_p(t)=(1/z_p(t))p\log \log t\).     

Existence and concentration of solution for a class of fractional Hamiltonian systems with subquadratic potential

In this article, we consider the following fractional Hamiltonian systems:

$$\begin{aligned} {_{t}}D_{\infty }^{\alpha }({_{-\infty }}D_{t}^{\alpha }u) + \lambda L(t)u = \nabla W(t, u), \;\;t\in \mathbb {R}, \end{aligned}$$

where \(\alpha \in (1/2, 1)\), \(\lambda >0\) is a parameter, \(L\in C(\mathbb {R}, \mathbb {R}^{n\times n})\) and \(W \in C^{1}(\mathbb {R} \times \mathbb {R}^n, \mathbb {R})\). Unlike most other papers on this problem, we require that L(t) is a positive semi-definite symmetric matrix for all \(t\in \mathbb {R}\), that is, \(L(t) \equiv 0\) is allowed to occur in some finite interval \(\mathbb {I}\) of \(\mathbb {R}\). Under some mild assumptions on W, we establish the existence of nontrivial weak solution, which vanish on \(\mathbb {R} \setminus \mathbb {I}\) as \(\lambda \rightarrow \infty ,\) and converge to \(\tilde{u}\) in \(H^{\alpha }(\mathbb {R})\); here \(\tilde{u} \in E_{0}^{\alpha }\) is nontrivial weak solution of the Dirichlet BVP for fractional Hamiltonian systems on the finite interval \(\mathbb {I}\). Furthermore, we give the multiplicity results for the above fractional Hamiltonian systems.

     

On stable Baire classes

We introduce and study adhesive spaces. Using this concept we obtain a characterization of stable Baire maps \({f : X\to Y}\) of the class \({\alpha}\) for wide classes of topological spaces. In particular, we prove that for a topological space X and a contractible space Y a map \({f : X \to Y}\) belongs to the nth stable Baire class if and only if there exist a sequence \({(f_k)_{k=1}^\infty}\) of continuous maps \({f_k : {X \to Y}}\) and a sequence \({(F_k)_{k=1}^\infty}\) of functionally ambiguous sets of the nth class in X such that \({f|_{F_k}=f_k|_{F_k}}\) for every k. Moreover, we show that every monotone function \({f : \mathbb{R} \to \mathbb{R}}\) is of the \({\alpha}\) th stable Baire class if and only if it belongs to the first stable Baire class.     

An Erdös–Révész type law of the iterated logarithm for reflected fractional Brownian motion

Let \(B_{H}=\{B_{H}(t):t\in \mathbb R\}\) be a fractional Brownian motion with Hurst parameter H ∈ (0,1). For the stationary storage process \(Q_{B_{H}}(t)=\sup _{-\infty <s\le t}(B_{H}(t)-B_{H}(s)-(t-s))\), t ≥ 0, we provide a tractable criterion for assessing whether, for any positive, non-decreasing function f, \( {\mathbb P(Q_{B_{H}}(t) > f(t)\, \text { i.o.})}\) equals 0 or 1. Using this criterion we find that, for a family of functions f _p (t), such that \(z_{p}(t)=\mathbb P(\sup _{s\in [0,f_{p}(t)]}Q_{B_{H}}(s)>f_{p}(t))/f_{p}(t)=\mathcal C(t\log ^{1-p} t)^{-1}\), for some \(\mathcal C>0\), \({\mathbb P(Q_{B_{H}}(t) > f_{p}(t)\, \text { i.o.})= 1_{\{p\ge 0\}}}\). Consequently, with \(\xi _{p} (t) = \sup \{s:0\le s\le t, Q_{B_{H}}(s)\ge f_{p}(s)\}\), for p ≥ 0, \(\lim _{t\to \infty }\xi _{p}(t)=\infty \) and \(\limsup _{t\to \infty }(\xi _{p}(t)-t)=0\) a.s. Complementary, we prove an Erdös–Révész type law of the iterated logarithm lower bound on ξ _p (t), i.e., \(\liminf _{t\to \infty }(\xi _{p}(t)-t)/h_{p}(t) = -1\) a.s., p > 1; \(\liminf _{t\to \infty }\log (\xi _{p}(t)/t)/(h_{p}(t)/t) = -1\) a.s., p ∈ (0,1], where h _p (t) = (1/z _p (t))p loglog t.     

Extremes of stationary Gaussian storage models

For the stationary storage process {Q(t), t ≥ 0}, with \( Q(t)=\sup _{s\ge t}\left (X(s)-X(t)-c(s-t)^{\beta }\right ),\) where {X(t), t ≥ 0} is a centered Gaussian process with stationary increments, c > 0 and β > 0 is chosen such that Q(t) is finite a.s., we derive exact asymptotics of \(\mathbb {P}\left (\sup _{t\in [0,T_{u}]} Q(t)>u \right )\) and \(\mathbb {P}\left (\inf _{t\in [0,T_{u}]} Q(t)>u \right )\), as \(u\rightarrow \infty \). As a by-product we find conditions under which strong Piterbarg property holds.     

Couplings of Brownian Motions of Deterministic Distance in Model Spaces of Constant Curvature

We consider the model space \(\mathbb {M}^{n}_{K}\) of constant curvature K and dimension \(n\ge 1\) (Euclidean space for \(K=0\), sphere for \(K>0\) and hyperbolic space for \(K<0\)), and we show that given a function \(\rho :[0,\infty )\rightarrow [0, \infty )\) with \(\rho (0)=\mathrm {dist}(x,y)\) there exists a coadapted coupling (X(t), Y(t)) of Brownian motions on \(\mathbb {M}^{n}_{K}\) starting at (x, y) such that \(\rho (t)=\mathrm {dist}(X(t),Y(t))\) for every \(t\ge 0\) if and only if \(\rho \) is continuous and satisfies for almost every \(t\ge 0\) the differential inequality

$$\begin{aligned} -(n-1)\sqrt{K}\tan \left( \tfrac{\sqrt{K}\rho (t)}{2}\right) \le \rho '(t)\le -(n-1)\sqrt{K}\tan \left( \tfrac{\sqrt{K}\rho (t)}{2}\right) +\tfrac{2(n-1)\sqrt{K}}{\sin (\sqrt{K}\rho (t))}. \end{aligned}$$

In other words, we characterize all coadapted couplings of Brownian motions on the model space \(\mathbb {M}^{n}_{K}\) for which the distance between the processes is deterministic. In addition, the construction of the coupling is explicit for every choice of \(\rho \) satisfying the above hypotheses.

     

Large Deviations for Sums of Random Vectors Attracted to Operator Semi-Stable Laws

Let \(\{X_i, i\ge 1\}\) be i.i.d. \(\mathbb {R}^d\)-valued random vectors attracted to operator semi-stable laws and write \(S_n=\sum _{i=1}^{n}X_i\). This paper investigates precise large deviations for both the partial sums \(S_n\) and the random sums \(S_{N(t)}\), where N(t) is a counting process independent of the sequence \(\{X_i, i\ge 1\}\). In particular, we show for all unit vectors \(\theta \) the asymptotics

$$\begin{aligned} {\mathbb P}(|\langle S_n,\theta \rangle |>x)\sim n{\mathbb P}(|\langle X,\theta \rangle |>x) \end{aligned}$$

which holds uniformly for x-region \([\gamma _n, \infty )\), where \(\langle \cdot , \cdot \rangle \) is the standard inner product on \(\mathbb {R}^d\) and \(\{\gamma _n\}\) is some monotone sequence of positive numbers. As applications, the precise large deviations for random sums of real-valued random variables with regularly varying tails and \(\mathbb {R}^d\)-valued random vectors with weakly negatively associated occurrences are proposed. The obtained results improve some related classical ones.

     

Bounding quantification in parametric expansions of Presburger arithmetic

Generalizing Cooper’s method of quantifier elimination for Presburger arithmetic, we give a new proof that all parametric Presburger families \(\{S_t : t \in \mathbb {N}\}\) [as defined by Woods (Electron J Comb 21:P21, 2014)] are definable by formulas with polynomially bounded quantifiers in an expanded language with predicates for divisibility by f(t) for every polynomial \(f \in \mathbb {Z}[t]\). In fact, this quantifier bounding method works more generally in expansions of Presburger arithmetic by multiplication by scalars \(\{\alpha (t): \alpha \in R, t \in X\}\) where R is any ring of functions from X into \(\mathbb {Z}\).     

Ground State Solutions for Asymptotically Periodic Kirchhoff-Type Equations with Asymptotically Cubic or Super-cubic Nonlinearities

This paper is concerned with the following Kirchhoff-type equation

$$\begin{aligned} -\left( a+b\int _{\mathbb {R}^3}|\nabla {u}|^2\mathrm {d}x\right) \triangle u+V(x)u=f(x, u), \quad x\in \mathbb {R}^{3}, \end{aligned}$$

where \(V\in \mathcal {C}(\mathbb {R}^{3}, (0,\infty ))\), \(f\in \mathcal {C}({\mathbb {R}}^{3}\times \mathbb {R}, \mathbb {R})\), V(x) and f(x, t) are periodic or asymptotically periodic in x. Using weaker assumptions \(\lim _{|t|\rightarrow \infty }\frac{\int _0^tf(x, s)\mathrm {d}s}{|t|^3}=\infty \) uniformly in \(x\in \mathbb {R}^3\) and

$$\begin{aligned}&\left[ \frac{f(x,\tau )}{\tau ^3}-\frac{f(x,t\tau )}{(t\tau )^3} \right] \mathrm {sign}(1-t) +\theta _0V(x)\frac{|1-t^2|}{(t\tau )^2}\ge 0, \quad \\&\quad \forall x\in \mathbb {R}^3,\ t>0, \ \tau \ne 0 \end{aligned}$$

with a constant \(\theta _0\in (0,1)\), instead of the common assumption \(\lim _{|t|\rightarrow \infty }\frac{\int _0^tf(x, s)\mathrm {d}s}{|t|^4}=\infty \) uniformly in \(x\in \mathbb {R}^3\) and the usual Nehari-type monotonic condition on \(f(x,t)/|t|^3\), we establish the existence of Nehari-type ground state solutions of the above problem, which generalizes and improves the recent results of Qin et al. (Comput Math Appl 71:1524–1536, 2016) and Zhang and Zhang (J Math Anal Appl 423:1671–1692, 2015). In particular, our results unify asymptotically cubic and super-cubic nonlinearities.

     

Number fields in fibers: the geometrically abelian case with rational critical values

Let X be an algebraic curve over \({\mathbb {Q}}\) and \({t\in {\mathbb {Q}}(X)}\) a non-constant rational function such that \({{\mathbb {Q}}(X)\ne {\mathbb {Q}}(t)}\). For every \({ n \in {\mathbb {Z}}}\) pick \({P_ n \in X(\bar{{\mathbb {Q}}})}\) such that \({t(P_n)=n}\). We conjecture that, for large N, among the number fields \({\mathbb {Q}}(P_1), \ldots , {\mathbb {Q}}(P_N)\) there are at least cN distinct. We prove this conjecture in the special case when \(\bar{{\mathbb {Q}}}(X)/\bar{{\mathbb {Q}}}(t)\) is an abelian field extension and the critical values of t are all rational. This implies, in particular, that our conjecture follows from a more famous conjecture of Schinzel.     

Multilicity results for some nonlinear ellitic roblems with asymtotically $${{\varvec{}}}$$-linear terms

Taking any \(p > 1\), we consider the asymptotically p-linear problem

$$\begin{aligned} \left\{ \begin{array}{ll} - {{\mathrm{div}}}(a(x,u,\nabla u)) + A_t(x,u,\nabla u)\ = \ \lambda ^\infty |u|^{p-2}u + g^\infty (x,u) &{}\quad \hbox {in}\;\Omega ,\\ u\ = \ 0 &{}\quad \hbox {on}\;\partial \Omega , \end{array} \right. \end{aligned}$$

where \(\Omega \) is a bounded domain in \(\mathbb R^N\), \(N\ge 2\), \(A(x,t,\xi )\) is a real function on \(\Omega \times \mathbb R\times \mathbb R^N\) which grows with power p with respect to \(\xi \) and has partial derivatives \(A_t(x,t,\xi ) = \frac{\partial A}{\partial t}(x,t,\xi )\), \(a(x,t,\xi ) = \nabla _\xi A(x,t,\xi )\). If \(A(x,t,\xi ) \rightarrow A^\infty (x,t)\) and \(\frac{g^\infty (x,t)}{|t|^{p-1}} \rightarrow 0\) as \(|t| \rightarrow +\infty \), suitable assumptions, variational methods and either the cohomological index theory or its related pseudo-index one, allow us to prove the existence of multiple nontrivial bounded solutions in the non-resonant case, i.e. if \(\lambda ^\infty \) is not an eigenvalue of the operator associated to \(\nabla _\xi A^\infty (x,\xi )\). In particular, while in [14] the model problem \(A(x,t,\xi ) = \mathcal{A}(x,t) |\xi |^p\) with \(p > N\) is studied, here our goal is twofold: extending such results not only to a more general family of functions \(A(x,t,\xi )\), but also to the more difficult case \(1 < p \le N\).

     

Littlewood-Paley Characterizations of Hajłasz-Sobolev and Triebel-Lizorkin Spaces via Averages on Balls

Let \(p\in (1,\infty )\) and \(q\in [1,\infty )\). In this article, the authors characterize the Triebel-Lizorkin space \({F}^{\alpha }_{p,q}(\mathbb {R}^{n})\) with smoothness order α ∈ (0, 2) via the Lusin-area function and the \(g_{\lambda }^{*}\)-function in terms of difference between f(x) and its ball average \(B_{t}f(x):=\frac 1{|B(x,t)|}{\int }_{B(x,t)}f(y)\,dy\) over the ball B(x, t) centered at \(x\in \mathbb {R}^{n}\) with radius t ∈ (0, 1). As an application, the authors obtain a series of characterizations of \(F^{\alpha }_{p,\infty }(\mathbb {R}^{n})\) via pointwise inequalities, involving ball averages, in spirit close to Haj?asz gradients, here some interesting phenomena naturally appear that, in the end-point case when α = 2, some of these pointwise inequalities characterize the Triebel-Lizorkin spaces \(F^{2}_{p,2}(\mathbb {R}^{n})\), while not \(F^{2}_{p,\infty }(\mathbb {R}^{n})\), and that some of other obtained pointwise characterizations are only known to hold true for \(F^{\alpha }_{p,\infty }(\mathbb {R}^{n})\) with \(p\in (1,\infty )\), α ∈ (0, 2) or α ∈ (n/p, 2). In particular, some new pointwise characterizations of Haj?asz-Sobolev spaces via ball averages are obtained. Since these new characterizations only use ball averages, they can be used as starting points for developing a theory of Triebel-Lizorkin spaces with smoothness orders not less than 1 on spaces of homogeneous type.     

A characterization of the normal distribution using stationary max-stable processes

Consider a max-stable process of the form \(\eta (t) = \max _{i\in \mathbb {N}} U_{i} \mathrm {e}^{\langle X_{i}, t\rangle - \kappa (t)}\), \(t\in \mathbb {R}^{d}\), where \(\{U_{i}, i\in \mathbb {N}\}\) are points of the Poisson process with intensity u ^?2du on (0,∞), X _i , \(i\in \mathbb {N}\), are independent copies of a random d-variate vector X (that are independent of the Poisson process), and \(\kappa :\mathbb {R}^{d} \to \mathbb {R}\) is a function. We show that the process η is stationary if and only if X has multivariate normal distribution and κ(t)?κ(0) is the cumulant generating function of X. In this case, η is a max-stable process introduced by R. L. Smith.     

Sign-changing solutions to a partially periodic nonlinear Schrödinger equation in domains with unbounded boundary

We consider the problem

$$\begin{aligned} -\Delta u+\left( V_{\infty }+V(x)\right) u=|u|^{p-2}u,\quad u\in H_{0} ^{1}(\Omega ), \end{aligned}$$

where \(\Omega \) is either \(\mathbb {R}^{N}\) or a smooth domain in \(\mathbb {R} ^{N}\) with unbounded boundary, \(N\ge 3,\) \(V_{\infty }>0,\) \(V\in \mathcal {C} ^{0}(\mathbb {R}^{N}),\) \(\inf _{\mathbb {R}^{N}}V>-V_{\infty }\) and \(2<p<\frac{2N}{N-2}\). We assume V is periodic in the first m variables, and decays exponentially to zero in the remaining ones. We also assume that \(\Omega \) is periodic in the first m variables and has bounded complement in the other ones. Then, assuming that \(\Omega \) and V are invariant under some suitable group of symmetries on the last \(N-m\) coordinates of \(\mathbb {R}^{N}\), we establish existence and multiplicity of sign-changing solutions to this problem. We show that, under suitable assumptions, there is a combined effect of the number of periodic variables and the symmetries of the domain on the number of sign-changing solutions to this problem. This number is at least \(m+1\)

     

On the semiclassical functional calculus for <Emphasis Type="Italic">h</Emphasis>-dependent functions

We study the functional calculus for operators of the form \(f_h(P(h))\) within the theory of semiclassical pseudodifferential operators, where \(\{f_h\}_{h\in (0,1]}\subset \mathrm{C^\infty _c}({{\mathbb {R}}})\) denotes a family of h-dependent functions satisfying some regularity conditions, and P(h) is either an appropriate self-adjoint semiclassical pseudodifferential operator in \(\mathrm{L}^2({{\mathbb {R}}}^n)\) or a Schrödinger operator in \(\mathrm{L}^2(M), M\) being a closed Riemannian manifold of dimension n. The main result is an explicit semiclassical trace formula with remainder estimate that is well-suited for studying the spectrum of P(h) in spectral windows of width of order \(h^\delta \), where \(0\le \delta <\frac{1}{2}\).     

Homomorphisms from $$C(X,\mathbb {Z})$$ into a ring of continuous functions

Let X be a zero-dimensional space and Y be a Tychonoff space. We show that every non-zero ring homomorphism \(\Phi :C(X,\mathbb {Z})\rightarrow C(Y)\) can be induced by a continuous function \(\pi :Y\rightarrow \upsilon _0X.\) Using this, it turns out that the kernel of such homomorphisms is equal to the intersection of some family of minimal prime ideals in \({{\mathrm{MinMax}}}\left( C(X,\mathbb {Z})\right) .\) As a consequence, we are able to obtain the fact that the factor ring \(\frac{C(X,\mathbb {Z})}{C_F(X,\mathbb {Z})}\) is a subring of some ring of continuous functions if and only if each infinite subset of isolated points of X has a limit point in \(\upsilon _0X.\) This implies that for an arbitrary infinite set X,  the factor ring \(\frac{\prod _{_{x\in X}}\mathbb {Z}_{_{x}}}{\oplus _{_{x\in X}}\mathbb {Z}_{_{x}}}\) is not embedded in any ring of continuous functions. The classical ring of quotients of the factor ring \(\frac{C(X,\mathbb {Z})}{C_F(X,\mathbb {Z})}\) is fully characterized. Finally, it is shown that the factor ring \(\frac{C(X,\mathbb {Z})}{C_F(X,\mathbb {Z})}\) is an I-ring if and only if each infinite subset of isolated points on X has a limit point in \(\upsilon _0X\) and \(\upsilon _0X{\setminus }\mathbb {I}(X)\) is an extremally disconnected \(C_{\mathbb {Z}}\)-subspace of \(\upsilon _0X,\) where \(\mathbb {I}(X)\) is the set of all isolated points of X.