Tractability of quasilinear problems II: Second-order elliptic problems

In a previous paper, we developed a general framework for establishing tractability and strong tractability for quasilinear multivariate problems in the worst case setting. One important example of such a problem is the solution of the Helmholtz equation in the -dimensional unit cube, in which depends linearly on , but nonlinearly on . Here, both and  are -variate functions from a reproducing kernel Hilbert space with finite-order weights of order . This means that, although  can be arbitrarily large, and  can be decomposed as sums of functions of at most  variables, with independent of .

In this paper, we apply our previous general results to the Helmholtz equation, subject to either Dirichlet or Neumann homogeneous boundary conditions. We study both the absolute and normalized error criteria. For all four possible combinations of boundary conditions and error criteria, we show that the problem is tractable. That is, the number of evaluations of and  needed to obtain an -approximation is polynomial in  and , with the degree of the polynomial depending linearly on . In addition, we want to know when the problem is strongly tractable, meaning that the dependence is polynomial only in  , independently of . We show that if the sum of the weights defining the weighted reproducing kernel Hilbert space is uniformly bounded in  and the integral of the univariate kernel is positive, then the Helmholtz equation is strongly tractable for three of the four possible combinations of boundary conditions and error criteria, the only exception being the Dirichlet boundary condition under the normalized error criterion.

     

The 192 solutions of the Heun equation

A machine-generated list of local solutions of the Heun equation is given. They are analogous to Kummer's  solutions of the Gauss hypergeometric equation, since the two equations are canonical Fuchsian differential equations on the Riemann sphere with four and three singular points, respectively. Tabulation is facilitated by the identification of the automorphism group of the equation with  singular points as the Coxeter group  . Each of the expressions is labeled by an element of  . Of the ,  are equivalent expressions for the local Heun function  , and it is shown that the resulting order- group of transformations of  is isomorphic to the symmetric group . The isomorphism encodes each transformation as a permutation of an abstract four-element set, not identical to the set of singular points.

     

On the smallest value of the maximal modulus of an algebraic integer

The house of an algebraic integer of degree is the largest modulus of its conjugates. For , we compute the smallest house of degree , say m. As a consequence we improve Matveev's theorem on the lower bound of m We show that, in this range, the conjecture of Schinzel-Zassenhaus is satisfied. The minimal polynomial of any algebraic integer whose house is equal to m is a factor of a bi-, tri- or quadrinomial. The computations use a family of explicit auxiliary functions. These functions depend on generalizations of the integer transfinite diameter of some compact sets in They give better bounds than the classical ones for the coefficients of the minimal polynomial of an algebraic integer whose house is small.

     

Heuristics for class numbers and lambda invariants

Let be an imaginary quadratic field and let be the associated real quadratic field. Starting from the Cohen-Lenstra heuristics and Scholz's theorem, we make predictions for the behaviors of the 3-parts of the class groups of these two fields as varies. We deduce heuristic predictions for the behavior of the Iwasawa -invariant for the cyclotomic -extension of and test them computationally.

     

On irregular prime power divisors of the Bernoulli numbers

Let ( ) denote the usual th Bernoulli number. Let be a positive even integer where or . It is well known that the numerator of the reduced quotient is a product of powers of irregular primes. Let be an irregular pair with . We show that for every the congruence has a unique solution where and . The sequence defines a -adic integer which is a zero of a certain -adic zeta function originally defined by T. Kubota and H. W. Leopoldt. We show some properties of these functions and give some applications. Subsequently we give several computations of the (truncated) -adic expansion of for irregular pairs with below 1000.

     

Stabilized finite element method based on the Crank-Nicolson extrapolation scheme for the time-dependent Navier-Stokes equations

This paper provides an error analysis for the Crank-Nicolson extrapolation scheme of time discretization applied to the spatially discrete stabilized finite element approximation of the two-dimensional time-dependent Navier-Stokes problem, where the finite element space pair for the approximation of the velocity and the pressure is constructed by the low-order finite element: the quadrilateral element or the triangle element with mesh size . Error estimates of the numerical solution to the exact solution with are derived.

     

Modular exponentiation via the explicit Chinese remainder theorem

Fix pairwise coprime positive integers . We propose representing integers modulo , where is any positive integer up to roughly , as vectors . We use this representation to obtain a new result on the parallel complexity of modular exponentiation: there is an algorithm for the Common CRCW PRAM that, given positive integers , , and in binary, of total bit length , computes in time using processors. For comparison, a parallelization of the standard binary algorithm takes superlinear time; Adleman and Kompella gave an expected time algorithm using processors; von zur Gathen gave an NC algorithm for the highly special case that is polynomially smooth.

     

On the distribution of zeros of the Hurwitz zeta-function

Assuming the Riemann hypothesis, we prove asymptotics for the sum of values of the Hurwitz zeta-function taken at the nontrivial zeros of the Riemann zeta-function when the parameter either tends to and , respectively, or is fixed; the case is of special interest since . If is fixed, we improve an older result of Fujii. Besides, we present several computer plots which reflect the dependence of zeros of on the parameter . Inspired by these plots, we call a zero of stable if its trajectory starts and ends on the critical line as varies from to , and we conjecture an asymptotic formula for these zeros.

     

Littlewood polynomials with high order zeros

Let be the minimal length of a polynomial with coefficients divisible by . Byrnes noted that for each , and asked whether in fact . Boyd showed that for all , but . He further showed that , and that is one of the 5 numbers , or . Here we prove that . Similarly, let be the maximal power of dividing some polynomial of degree with coefficients. Boyd was able to find for . In this paper we determine for .

     

Maximum norm error analysis of a 2d singularly perturbed semilinear reaction-diffusion problem

A semilinear reaction-diffusion equation with multiple solutions is considered in a smooth two-dimensional domain. Its diffusion parameter is arbitrarily small, which induces boundary layers. Constructing discrete sub- and super-solutions, we prove existence and investigate the accuracy of multiple discrete solutions on layer-adapted meshes of Bakhvalov and Shishkin types. It is shown that one gets second-order convergence (with, in the case of the Shishkin mesh, a logarithmic factor) in the discrete maximum norm, uniformly in for . Here is the maximum side length of mesh elements, while the number of mesh nodes does not exceed . Numerical experiments are performed to support the theoretical results.

     

Detecting perfect powers by factoring into coprimes

This paper presents an algorithm that, given an integer , finds the largest integer such that is a th power. A previous algorithm by the first author took time where ; more precisely, time ; conjecturally, time . The new algorithm takes time . It relies on relatively complicated subroutines--specifically, on the first author's fast algorithm to factor integers into coprimes--but it allows a proof of the bound without much background; the previous proof of relied on transcendental number theory.

The computation of is the first step, and occasionally the bottleneck, in many number-theoretic algorithms: the Agrawal-Kayal-Saxena primality test, for example, and the number-field sieve for integer factorization.

     

Constructing representations of higher degrees of finite simple groups and covers

Let be a finite group and an irreducible character of . A simple method for constructing a representation affording can be used whenever has a subgroup such that has a linear constituent with multiplicity 1. In this paper we show that (with a few exceptions) if is a simple group or a covering group of a simple group and is an irreducible character of of degree between 32 and 100, then such a subgroup exists.

     

Efficient computation of root numbers and class numbers of parametrized families of real abelian number fields

Let be a parametrized family of simplest real cyclic cubic, quartic, quintic or sextic number fields of known regulators, e.g., the so-called simplest cubic and quartic fields associated with the polynomials and . We give explicit formulas for powers of the Gaussian sums attached to the characters associated with these simplest number fields. We deduce a method for computing the exact values of these Gaussian sums. These values are then used to efficiently compute class numbers of simplest fields. Finally, such class number computations yield many examples of real cyclotomic fields of prime conductors and class numbers greater than or equal to . However, in accordance with Vandiver's conjecture, we found no example of for which divides .

     

Univariate splines: Equivalence of moduli of smoothness and applications

Several results on equivalence of moduli of smoothness of univariate splines are obtained. For example, it is shown that, for any , , and , the inequality , , is satisfied, where is a piecewise polynomial of degree on a quasi-uniform (i.e., the ratio of lengths of the largest and the smallest intervals is bounded by a constant) partition of an interval. Similar results for Chebyshev partitions and weighted Ditzian-Totik moduli of smoothness are also obtained. These results yield simple new constructions and allow considerable simplification of various known proofs in the area of constrained approximation by polynomials and splines.

     

Two kinds of strong pseudoprimes up to

Let be an odd composite integer. Write with odd. If either mod or mod for some , then we say that is a strong pseudoprime to base , or spsp() for short. Define to be the smallest strong pseudoprime to all the first prime bases. If we know the exact value of , we will have, for integers , a deterministic efficient primality testing algorithm which is easy to implement. Thanks to Pomerance et al. and Jaeschke, the are known for . Conjectured values of were given by us in our previous papers (Math. Comp. 72 (2003), 2085-2097; 74 (2005), 1009-1024).

The main purpose of this paper is to give exact values of for ; to give a lower bound of : ; and to give reasons and numerical evidence of K2- and -spsp's to support the following conjecture: for any , where (resp. ) is the smallest K2- (resp. -) strong pseudoprime to all the first prime bases. For this purpose we describe procedures for computing and enumerating the two kinds of spsp's to the first 9 prime bases. The entire calculation took about 4000 hours on a PC Pentium IV/1.8GHz. (Recall that a K2-spsp is an spsp of the form: with primes and ; and that a -spsp is an spsp and a Carmichael number of the form: with each prime factor mod .)

     

Continuous-time Kreiss resolvent condition on infinite-dimensional spaces

Given the infinitesimal generator of a -semigroup on the Banach space which satisfies the Kreiss resolvent condition, i.e., there exists an such that for all complex with positive real part, we show that for general Banach spaces this condition does not give any information on the growth of the associated -semigroup. For Hilbert spaces the situation is less dramatic. In particular, we show that the semigroup can grow at most like . Furthermore, we show that for every there exists an infinitesimal generator satisfying the Kreiss resolvent condition, but whose semigroup grows at least like . As a consequence, we find that for with the standard Euclidian norm the estimate cannot be replaced by a lower power of or .

     

The monic integer transfinite diameter

We study the problem of finding nonconstant monic integer polynomials, normalized by their degree, with small supremum on an interval . The monic integer transfinite diameter is defined as the infimum of all such supremums. We show that if has length , then .

We make three general conjectures relating to the value of for intervals of length less than . We also conjecture a value for where . We give some partial results, as well as computational evidence, to support these conjectures.

We define functions and , which measure properties of the lengths of intervals with on either side of . Upper and lower bounds are given for these functions.

We also consider the problem of determining when is a Farey interval. We prove that a conjecture of Borwein, Pinner and Pritsker concerning this value is true for an infinite family of Farey intervals.

     

On the optimal convergence rate of universal and nonuniversal algorithms for multivariate integration and approximation

We study the maximal rate of convergence (mrc) of algorithms for (multivariate) integration and approximation of -variate functions from reproducing kernel Hilbert spaces . Here is an arbitrary kernel all of whose partial derivatives up to order satisfy a Hölder-type condition with exponent . Algorithms use function values and we analyze their rate of convergence as tends to infinity. We focus on universal algorithms which depend on , , and but not on the specific kernel , and nonuniversal algorithms which may depend additionally on .

For universal algorithms the mrc is for both integration and approximation, and for nonuniversal algorithms it is for integration and with for approximation. Hence, the mrc for universal algorithms suffers from the curse of dimensionality if is large relative to , whereas the mrc for nonuniversal algorithms does not since it is always at least for integration, and for approximation. This is the price we have to pay for using universal algorithms. On the other hand, if is large relative to , then the mrc for universal and nonuniversal algorithms is approximately the same.

We also consider the case when we have the additional knowledge that the kernel has product structure, . Here are some univariate kernels whose all derivatives up to order satisfy a Hölder-type condition with exponent . Then the mrc for universal algorithms is for both integration and approximation, and for nonuniversal algorithms it is for integration and with for approximation. If or for all , then the mrc is at least , and the curse of dimensionality is not present. Hence, the product form of reproducing kernels breaks the curse of dimensionality even for universal algorithms.

     

Iterated function systems, Ruelle operators, and invariant projective measures

We introduce a Fourier-based harmonic analysis for a class of discrete dynamical systems which arise from Iterated Function Systems. Our starting point is the following pair of special features of these systems. (1) We assume that a measurable space comes with a finite-to-one endomorphism which is onto but not one-to-one. (2) In the case of affine Iterated Function Systems (IFSs) in , this harmonic analysis arises naturally as a spectral duality defined from a given pair of finite subsets in of the same cardinality which generate complex Hadamard matrices.

Our harmonic analysis for these iterated function systems (IFS) is based on a Markov process on certain paths. The probabilities are determined by a weight function on . From we define a transition operator acting on functions on , and a corresponding class of continuous -harmonic functions. The properties of the functions in are analyzed, and they determine the spectral theory of . For affine IFSs we establish orthogonal bases in . These bases are generated by paths with infinite repetition of finite words. We use this in the last section to analyze tiles in .

     

Quaternionic Manin symbols, Brandt matrices, and Hilbert modular forms

In this paper, we propose a generalization of the algorithm we developed previously. Along the way, we also develop a theory of quaternionic -symbols whose definition bears some resemblance to the classical -symbols, except for their combinatorial nature. The theory gives a more efficient way to compute Hilbert modular forms over totally real number fields, especially quadratic fields, and we have illustrated it with several examples. Namely, we have computed all the newforms of prime levels of norm less than 100 over the quadratic fields and , and whose Fourier coefficients are rational or are defined over a quadratic field.