Testing polycyclicity of finitely generated rational matrix groups

We describe algorithms for testing polycyclicity and nilpotency for finitely generated subgroups of and thus we show that these properties are decidable. Variations of our algorithm can be used for testing virtual polycyclicity and virtual nilpotency for finitely generated subgroups of .

     

Alternating forms and the Brauer group of a geometric field

We compute the theory of for any proabelian group , using a natural isomorphism with the group of continuous alternating forms. We use this to establish a sort of generic behavioral ideal, or role model, for the Brauer group Br of a geometric field of characteristic zero. We show this ideal is attained in several interesting cases.

     

Bases for some reciprocity algebras I

For a complex vector space , let be the algebra of polynomial functions on . In this paper, we construct bases for the algebra of all highest weight vectors in , where and for all , and the algebra of highest weight vectors in .

     

The zero set of semi-invariants for extended Dynkin quivers

We show that the set of common zeros of all semi-invariants vanishing at 0 on the variety of all representations with dimension vector of an extended Dynkin quiver under the group is a complete intersection if is ``big enough'. In case does not contain an open -orbit, which is the case not considered so far, the number of irreducible components of grows with , except if is an oriented cycle.

     

Lusternik-Schnirelmann category of

First we give an upper bound of , the L-S category of a principal -bundle for a connected compact group with a characteristic map . Assume that there is a cone-decomposition of in the sense of Ganea that is compatible with multiplication. Then we have for , if is compressible into with trivial higher Hopf invariant . Second, we introduce a new computable lower bound, for . The two new estimates imply , where is a category weight due to Rudyak and Strom.

     

On orbital partitions and exceptionality of primitive permutation groups

Let and be transitive permutation groups on a set such that is a normal subgroup of . The overgroup induces a natural action on the set of non-trivial orbitals of on . In the study of Galois groups of exceptional covers of curves, one is led to characterizing the triples where fixes no elements of ; such triples are called exceptional. In the study of homogeneous factorizations of complete graphs, one is led to characterizing quadruples where is a partition of such that is transitive on ; such a quadruple is called a TOD (transitive orbital decomposition). It follows easily that the triple in a TOD is exceptional; conversely if an exceptional triple is such that is cyclic of prime-power order, then there exists a partition of such that is a TOD. This paper characterizes TODs such that is primitive and is cyclic of prime-power order. An application is given to the classification of self-complementary vertex-transitive graphs.

     

Cohomology operations for Lie algebras

If is a Lie algebra over and its centre, the natural inclusion extends to a representation of the exterior algebra of in the cohomology of . We begin a study of this representation by examining its Poincaré duality properties, its associated higher cohomology operations and its relevance to the toral rank conjecture. In particular, by using harmonic forms we show that the higher operations presented by Goresky, Kottwitz and MacPherson (1998) form a subalgebra of , and that they can be assembled to yield an explicit Hirsch-Brown model for the Borel construction associated to .

     

Brauer groups of genus zero extensions of number fields

We determine the isomorphism class of the Brauer groups of certain nonrational genus zero extensions of number fields. In particular, for all genus zero extensions of the rational numbers that are split by , .

     

A sharp bound for the ratio of the first two Dirichlet eigenvalues of a domain in a hemisphere of

For a domain contained in a hemisphere of the -dimensional sphere we prove the optimal result for the ratio of its first two Dirichlet eigenvalues where , the symmetric rearrangement of in , is a geodesic ball in having the same -volume as . We also show that for geodesic balls of geodesic radius less than or equal to is an increasing function of which runs between the value for (this is the Euclidean value) and for . Here denotes the th positive zero of the Bessel function . This result generalizes the Payne-Pólya-Weinberger conjecture, which applies to bounded domains in Euclidean space and which we had proved earlier. Our method makes use of symmetric rearrangement of functions and various technical properties of special functions. We also prove that among all domains contained in a hemisphere of and having a fixed value of the one with the maximal value of is the geodesic ball of the appropriate radius. This is a stronger, but slightly less accessible, isoperimetric result than that for . Various other results for and of geodesic balls in are proved in the course of our work.

     

Constructive recognition of

Existing black box and other algorithms for explicitly recognising groups of Lie type over have asymptotic running times which are polynomial in , whereas the input size involves only . This has represented a serious obstruction to the efficient recognition of such groups. Recently, Brooksbank and Kantor devised new explicit recognition algorithms for classical groups; these run in time that is polynomial in the size of the input, given an oracle that recognises explicitly.

The present paper, in conjunction with an earlier paper by the first two authors, provides such an oracle. The earlier paper produced an algorithm for explicitly recognising in its natural representation in polynomial time, given a discrete logarithm oracle for . The algorithm presented here takes as input a generating set for a subgroup of that is isomorphic modulo scalars to , where is a finite field of the same characteristic as ; it returns the natural representation of modulo scalars. Since a faithful projective representation of in cross characteristic, or a faithful permutation representation of this group, is necessarily of size that is polynomial in rather than in , elementary algorithms will recognise explicitly in polynomial time in these cases. Given a discrete logarithm oracle for , our algorithm thus provides the required polynomial time oracle for recognising explicitly in the remaining case, namely for representations in the natural characteristic.

This leads to a partial solution of a question posed by Babai and Shalev: if is a matrix group in characteristic , determine in polynomial time whether or not is trivial.

     

Inseparable extensions of algebras over the Steenrod algebra with applications to modular invariant theory of finite groups

We consider purely inseparable extensions of unstable Noetherian integral domains over the Steenrod algebra. It turns out that there exists a finite group and a vector space decomposition such that and , where denotes the integral closure. Moreover, is Cohen-Macaulay if and only if is Cohen-Macaulay. Furthermore, is polynomial if and only if is polynomial, and if and only if

where and .

     

Whitney's extension problem for multivariate -functions

We prove that the trace of the space to an arbitrary closed subset is characterized by the following ``finiteness' property. A function belongs to the trace space if and only if the restriction to an arbitrary subset consisting of at most can be extended to a function such that

The constant is sharp.

The proof is based on a Lipschitz selection result which is interesting in its own right.

     

Extensions for finite Chevalley groups II

Let be a semisimple simply connected algebraic group defined and split over the field with elements, let be the finite Chevalley group consisting of the -rational points of where , and let be the th Frobenius kernel. The purpose of this paper is to relate extensions between modules in and with extensions between modules in . Among the results obtained are the following: for 2$"> and , the -extensions between two simple -modules are isomorphic to the -extensions between two simple -restricted -modules with suitably ``twisted" highest weights. For , we provide a complete characterization of where and is -restricted. Furthermore, for , necessary and sufficient bounds on the size of the highest weight of a -module are given to insure that the restriction map is an isomorphism. Finally, it is shown that the extensions between two simple -restricted -modules coincide in all three categories provided the highest weights are ``close" together.

     

One-dimensional asymptotic classes of finite structures

A collection of finite -structures is a 1-dimensional asymptotic class if for every and every formula , where :

(i)

There is a positive constant and a finite set such that for every and , either , or for some ,

(ii)

For every , there is an -formula , such that is precisely the set of with

One-dimensional asymptotic classes are introduced and studied here. These classes come equipped with a notion of dimension that is intended to provide for the study of classes of finite structures a concept that is central in the development of model theory for infinite structures. Connections with the model theory of infinite structures are also drawn.

     

Poincaré series of resolutions of surface singularities

Let be a resolution of singularities of a normal surface singularity , with integral exceptional divisors . We consider the Poincaré series

where

We show that if has characteristic zero and is a semi-abelian variety, then the Poincaré series is rational. However, we give examples to show that this series can be irrational if either of these conditions fails.

     

On the Diophantine equation : Higher-order recurrences

Let be a field of characteristic and let be a linear recurring sequence of degree in defined by the initial terms and by the difference equation

with . Finally, let be an element of . In this paper we are giving fairly general conditions depending only on on , and on under which the Diophantine equation

has only finitely many solutions . Moreover, we are giving an upper bound for the number of solutions, which depends only on . This paper is a continuation of the work of the authors on this equation in the case of second-order linear recurring sequences.

     

Heegner points and Mordell-Weil groups of elliptic curves over large fields

Let be an elliptic curve defined over of conductor and let be the absolute Galois group of an algebraic closure of . For an automorphism , we let be the fixed subfield of under . We prove that for every , the Mordell-Weil group of over the maximal Galois extension of contained in has infinite rank, so the rank of is infinite. Our approach uses the modularity of and a collection of algebraic points on - the so-called Heegner points - arising from the theory of complex multiplication. In particular, we show that for some integer and for a prime prime to , the rank of over all the ring class fields of a conductor of the form is unbounded, as goes to infinity.

     

Serre's generalization of Nagao's theorem: An elementary approach

Let be a smooth projective curve over a field . For each closed point of let be the coordinate ring of the affine curve obtained by removing from . Serre has proved that is isomorphic to the fundamental group, , of a graph of groups , where is a tree with at most one non-terminal vertex. Moreover the subgroups of attached to the terminal vertices of are in one-one correspondence with the elements of , the ideal class group of . This extends an earlier result of Nagao for the simplest case .

Serre's proof is based on applying the theory of groups acting on trees to the quotient graph , where is the associated Bruhat-Tits building. To determine he makes extensive use of the theory of vector bundles (of rank 2) over . In this paper we determine using a more elementary approach which involves substantially less algebraic geometry.

The subgroups attached to the edges of are determined (in part) by a set of positive integers , say. In this paper we prove that is bounded, even when Cl is infinite. This leads, for example, to new free product decomposition results for certain principal congruence subgroups of , involving unipotent and elementary matrices.

     

Properties of Anick's spaces

We prove three useful properties of Anick's space  . First, at odd primes a map from into a homotopy commutative, homotopy associative -space can be extended to a unique -map from into . Second, at primes larger than , is itself homotopy commutative and homotopy associative. And third, the first two properties combine to show that the order of the identity map on  is .

     

Periodic solutions of conservation laws constructed through Glimm scheme

We present a periodic version of the Glimm scheme applicable to special classes of systems for which a simplication first noticed by Nishida (1968) and further extended by Bakhvalov (1970) and DiPerna (1973) is available. For these special classes of systems of conservation laws the simplification of the Glimm scheme gives global existence of solutions of the Cauchy problem with large initial data in , for Bakhvalov's class, and in , in the case of DiPerna's class. It may also happen that the system is in Bakhvalov's class only at a neighboorhood of a constant state, as it was proved for the isentropic gas dynamics by DiPerna (1973), in which case the initial data is taken in with , for some constant which is for the isentropic gas dynamics systems. For periodic initial data, our periodic formulation establishes that the periodic solutions so constructed, , are uniformly bounded in , for all 0$">, where is the period. We then obtain the asymptotic decay of these solutions by applying a theorem of Chen and Frid in (1999) combined with a compactness theorem of DiPerna in (1983). The question about the decay of Nishida's solution was proposed by Glimm and Lax in (1970) and has remained open since then. The classes considered include the -systems with , , , which, for , model isentropic gas dynamics in Lagrangian coordinates.