Convergence of Martingale and Moderate Deviations for a Branching Random Walk with a Random Environment in Time

We consider a branching random walk on \({\mathbb {R}}\) with a stationary and ergodic environment \(\xi =(\xi _n)\) indexed by time \(n\in {\mathbb {N}}\). Let \(Z_n\) be the counting measure of particles of generation n and \(\tilde{Z}_n(t)=\int \mathrm{e}^{tx}Z_n(\mathrm{d}x)\) be its Laplace transform. We show the \(L^p\) convergence rate and the uniform convergence of the martingale \(\tilde{Z}_n(t)/{\mathbb {E}}[\tilde{Z}_n(t)|\xi ]\), and establish a moderate deviation principle for the measures \(Z_n\).     

Eldan’s Stochastic Localization and Tubular Neighborhoods of Complex-Analytic Sets

Let \(f: \mathbb {C}^n \rightarrow \mathbb {C}^k\) be a holomorphic function and set \(Z = f^{-1}(0)\). Assume that Z is non-empty. We prove that for any \(r > 0\),

$$\begin{aligned} \gamma _n(Z + r) \ge \gamma _n(E + r), \end{aligned}$$

where \(Z + r\) is the Euclidean r-neighborhood of Z; \(\gamma _n\) is the standard Gaussian measure in \(\mathbb {C}^n\), and \(E \subseteq \mathbb {C}^n\) is an \((n-k)\)-dimensional, affine, complex subspace whose distance from the origin is the same as the distance of Z from the origin.

     

Ranks of ideals in inverse semigroups of difunctional binary relations

The set \(\mathcal {D}_n\) of all difunctional relations on an n element set is an inverse semigroup under a variation of the usual composition operation. We solve an open problem of Kudryavtseva and Maltcev (Publ Math Debrecen 78(2):253–282, 2011), which asks: What is the rank (smallest size of a generating set) of \(\mathcal {D}_n\)? Specifically, we show that the rank of \(\mathcal {D}_n\) is \(B(n)+n\), where B(n) is the nth Bell number. We also give the rank of an arbitrary ideal of \(\mathcal {D}_n\). Although \(\mathcal {D}_n\) bears many similarities with families such as the full transformation semigroups and symmetric inverse semigroups (all contain the symmetric group and have a chain of \(\mathscr {J}\)-classes), we note that the fast growth of \({\text {rank}}(\mathcal {D}_n)\) as a function of n is a property not shared with these other families.     

Lengths of words in transformation semigroups generated by digraphs

Given a simple digraph D on n vertices (with \(n\ge 2\)), there is a natural construction of a semigroup of transformations \(\langle D\rangle \). For any edge (a, b) of D, let \(a\rightarrow b\) be the idempotent of rank \(n-1\) mapping a to b and fixing all vertices other than a; then, define \(\langle D\rangle \) to be the semigroup generated by \(a \rightarrow b\) for all \((a,b) \in E(D)\). For \(\alpha \in \langle D\rangle \), let \(\ell (D,\alpha )\) be the minimal length of a word in E(D) expressing \(\alpha \). It is well known that the semigroup \(\mathrm {Sing}_n\) of all transformations of rank at most \(n-1\) is generated by its idempotents of rank \(n-1\). When \(D=K_n\) is the complete undirected graph, Howie and Iwahori, independently, obtained a formula to calculate \(\ell (K_n,\alpha )\), for any \(\alpha \in \langle K_n\rangle = \mathrm {Sing}_n\); however, no analogous non-trivial results are known when \(D \ne K_n\). In this paper, we characterise all simple digraphs D such that either \(\ell (D,\alpha )\) is equal to Howie–Iwahori’s formula for all \(\alpha \in \langle D\rangle \), or \(\ell (D,\alpha ) = n - \mathrm {fix}(\alpha )\) for all \(\alpha \in \langle D\rangle \), or \(\ell (D,\alpha ) = n - \mathrm {rk}(\alpha )\) for all \(\alpha \in \langle D\rangle \). We also obtain bounds for \(\ell (D,\alpha )\) when D is an acyclic digraph or a strong tournament (the latter case corresponds to a smallest generating set of idempotents of rank \(n-1\) of \(\mathrm {Sing}_n\)). We finish the paper with a list of conjectures and open problems.     

Sandwich semigroups in locally small categories I: foundations

Fix (not necessarily distinct) objects i and j of a locally small category S, and write \(S_{ij}\) for the set of all morphisms \(i\rightarrow j\). Fix a morphism \(a\in S_{ji}\), and define an operation \(\star _a\) on \(S_{ij}\) by \(x\star _ay=xay\) for all \(x,y\in S_{ij}\). Then \((S_{ij},\star _a)\) is a semigroup, known as a sandwich semigroup, and denoted by \(S_{ij}^a\). This article develops a general theory of sandwich semigroups in locally small categories. We begin with structural issues such as regularity, Green’s relations and stability, focusing on the relationships between these properties on \(S_{ij}^a\) and the whole category S. We then identify a natural condition on a, called sandwich regularity, under which the set \({\text {Reg}}(S_{ij}^a)\) of all regular elements of \(S_{ij}^a\) is a subsemigroup of \(S_{ij}^a\). Under this condition, we carefully analyse the structure of the semigroup \({\text {Reg}}(S_{ij}^a)\), relating it via pullback products to certain regular subsemigroups of \(S_{ii}\) and \(S_{jj}\), and to a certain regular sandwich monoid defined on a subset of \(S_{ji}\); among other things, this allows us to also describe the idempotent-generated subsemigroup \(\mathbb E(S_{ij}^a)\) of \(S_{ij}^a\). We also study combinatorial invariants such as the rank (minimal size of a generating set) of the semigroups \(S_{ij}^a\), \({\text {Reg}}(S_{ij}^a)\) and \(\mathbb E(S_{ij}^a)\); we give lower bounds for these ranks, and in the case of \({\text {Reg}}(S_{ij}^a)\) and \(\mathbb E(S_{ij}^a)\) show that the bounds are sharp under a certain condition we call MI-domination. Applications to concrete categories of transformations and partial transformations are given in Part II.     

Closed range and nonclosed range adjointable operators on Hilbert $$C^*$$-modules

In this paper, we show that for a positive operator A on a Hilbert \(C^*\)-module \( \mathscr {E} \), the range \( \mathscr {R}(A) \) of A is closed if and only if \( \mathscr {R}(A^\alpha ) \) is closed for all \(\alpha \in (0,1)\cup (1,+\,\infty )\), and this occurs if and only if \( \mathscr {R}(A)=\mathscr {R}(A^\alpha ) \) for all \(\alpha \in (0,1)\cup (1,+\,\infty )\). As an application, we prove that for an adjontable operator A if \(\mathscr {R}(A)\) is nonclosed, then \(\dim \left( \overline{\mathscr {R}(A)}/\mathscr {R}(A)\right) =+\,\infty \). Finally, we show that for an adjointable operator A if \( \overline{\mathscr {R}(A^*) } \) is orthogonally complemented in \( \mathscr {E} \), then under certain coditions there exists an idempotent C and a unique operator X such that \( XAX=X, AXA=CA, AX=C \) and \( XA=P_{A^*} \), where \( P_{A^*} \) is the orthogonal projection of \( \mathscr {E} \) onto \( \overline{\mathscr {R}(A^*)}\).     

Dimensions of fibers of generic continuous maps

In an earlier paper Buczolich, Elekes, and the author described the Hausdorff dimension of the level sets of a generic real-valued continuous function (in the sense of Baire category) defined on a compact metric space K by introducing the notion of topological Hausdorff dimension. Later on, the author extended the theory for maps from K to \({\mathbb {R}}^n\). The main goal of this paper is to generalize the relevant results for topological and packing dimensions and to obtain new results for sufficiently homogeneous spaces K even in the case case of Hausdorff dimension. Let K be a compact metric space and let us denote by \(C(K,{\mathbb {R}}^n)\) the set of continuous maps from K to \({\mathbb {R}}^n\) endowed with the maximum norm. Let \(\dim _{*}\) be one of the topological dimension \(\dim _T\), the Hausdorff dimension \(\dim _H\), or the packing dimension \(\dim _P\). Define

$$\begin{aligned} d_{*}^n(K)=\inf \left\{ \dim _{*}(K{\setminus } F): F\subset K \text { is } \sigma \text {-compact with } \dim _T F<n\right\} . \end{aligned}$$

We prove that \(d^n_{*}(K)\) is the right notion to describe the dimensions of the fibers of a generic continuous map \(f\in C(K,{\mathbb {R}}^n)\). In particular, we show that \(\sup \{\dim _{*}f^{-1}(y): y\in {\mathbb {R}}^n\} =d^n_{*}(K)\) provided that \(\dim _T K\ge n\), otherwise every fiber is finite. Proving the above theorem for packing dimension requires entirely new ideas. Moreover, we show that the supremum is attained on the left hand side of the above equation. Assume \(\dim _T K\ge n\). If K is sufficiently homogeneous, then we can say much more. For example, we prove that \(\dim _{*}f^{-1}(y)=d^n_{*}(K)\) for a generic \(f\in C(K,{\mathbb {R}}^n)\) for all \(y\in {{\mathrm{int}}}f(K)\) if and only if \(d^n_{*}(U)=d^n_{*}(K)\) or \(\dim _T U<n\) for all open sets \(U\subset K\). This is new even if \(n=1\) and \(\dim _{*}=\dim _H\). It is known that for a generic \(f\in C(K,{\mathbb {R}}^n)\) the interior of f(K) is not empty. We augment the above characterization by showing that \(\dim _T \partial f(K)=\dim _H \partial f(K)=n-1\) for a generic \(f\in C(K,{\mathbb {R}}^n)\). In particular, almost every point of f(K) is an interior point. In order to obtain more precise results, we use the concept of generalized Hausdorff and packing measures, too.

     

On some constacyclic codes over $$\mathbb {Z}_{4}\left[ u\right] /\left\langle u^{2}-1\right\rangle $$, their $$\mathbb {Z}_4$$Z4 images,and new codes

In this paper, we study \(\lambda \)-constacyclic codes over the ring \(R=\mathbb {Z}_4+u\mathbb {Z}_4\) where \(u^{2}=1\), for \(\lambda =3+2u\) and \(2+3u\). Two new Gray maps from R to \(\mathbb {Z}_4^{3}\) are defined with the goal of obtaining new linear codes over \(\mathbb {Z}_4\). The Gray images of \(\lambda \)-constacyclic codes over R are determined. We then conducted a computer search and obtained many \(\lambda \)-constacyclic codes over R whose \(\mathbb {Z}_4\)-images have better parameters than currently best-known linear codes over \(\mathbb {Z}_4\).     

Sampling and Cubature on Sparse Grids Based on a B-spline Quasi-Interpolation

Let \(X_n = \{x^j\}_{j=1}^n\) be a set of n points in the d-cube \({\mathbb {I}}^d:=[0,1]^d\), and \(\Phi _n = \{\varphi _j\}_{j =1}^n\) a family of n functions on \({\mathbb {I}}^d\). We consider the approximate recovery of functions f on \({{\mathbb {I}}}^d\) from the sampled values \(f(x^1), \ldots , f(x^n)\), by the linear sampling algorithm \( L_n(X_n,\Phi _n,f) := \sum _{j=1}^n f(x^j)\varphi _j. \) The error of sampling recovery is measured in the norm of the space \(L_q({\mathbb {I}}^d)\)-norm or the energy quasi-norm of the isotropic Sobolev space \(W^\gamma _q({\mathbb {I}}^d)\) for \(1 < q < \infty \) and \(\gamma > 0\). Functions f to be recovered are from the unit ball in Besov-type spaces of an anisotropic smoothness, in particular, spaces \(B^{\alpha ,\beta }_{p,\theta }\) of a “hybrid” of mixed smoothness \(\alpha > 0\) and isotropic smoothness \(\beta \in {\mathbb {R}}\), and spaces \(B^a_{p,\theta }\) of a nonuniform mixed smoothness \(a \in {\mathbb {R}}^d_+\). We constructed asymptotically optimal linear sampling algorithms \(L_n(X_n^*,\Phi _n^*,\cdot )\) on special sparse grids \(X_n^*\) and a family \(\Phi _n^*\) of linear combinations of integer or half integer translated dilations of tensor products of B-splines. We computed the asymptotic order of the error of the optimal recovery. This construction is based on B-spline quasi-interpolation representations of functions in \(B^{\alpha ,\beta }_{p,\theta }\) and \(B^a_{p,\theta }\). As consequences, we obtained the asymptotic order of optimal cubature formulas for numerical integration of functions from the unit ball of these Besov-type spaces.     

Weighted local Hardy spaces associated with operators

Let L be a self-adjoint positive operator on \(L^2(\mathbb {R}^n)\). Assume that the semigroup \(e^{-tL}\) generated by \(-L\) satisfies the Gaussian kernel bounds on \(L^2(\mathbb {R}^n)\). In this article, we study weighted local Hardy space \(h_{L,w}^{1}(\mathbb {R}^n)\) associated with L in terms of the area function characterization, and prove their atomic characters. Then, we introduce the weighted local BMO space \(\mathrm{bmo}_{L,w}(\mathbb {R}^n)\) and prove that the dual of \(h_{L,w}^{1}(\mathbb {R}^n)\) is \(\mathrm{bmo}_{L,w}(\mathbb {R}^n)\). Finally a broad class of applications of these results is described.     

Spectral multiplier theorems and averaged <Emphasis Type="Italic">R</Emphasis>-boundedness

Let A be a 0-sectorial operator with a bounded \(H^\infty (\Sigma _\sigma )\)-calculus for some \(\sigma \in (0,\pi ),\) e.g. a Laplace type operator on \(L^p(\Omega ),\, 1< p < \infty ,\) where \(\Omega \) is a manifold or a graph. We show that A has a \(\mathcal {H}^\alpha _2(\mathbb {R}_+)\) Hörmander functional calculus if and only if certain operator families derived from the resolvent \((\lambda - A)^{-1},\) the semigroup \(e^{-zA},\) the wave operators \(e^{itA}\) or the imaginary powers \(A^{it}\) of A are R-bounded in an \(L^2\)-averaged sense. If X is an \(L^p(\Omega )\) space with \(1 \le p < \infty \), R-boundedness reduces to well-known estimates of square sums.     

Constructive Approximation in de Branges–Rovnyak Spaces

In most classical holomorphic function spaces on the unit disk in which the polynomials are dense, a function f can be approximated in norm by its dilates \(f_r(z):=f(rz)~(r<1)\). We show that this is not the case for the de Branges–Rovnyak spaces \(\mathcal{H}(b)\). More precisely, we exhibit a space \(\mathcal{H}(b)\) in which the polynomials are dense and a function \(f\in \mathcal{H}(b)\) such that \(\lim _{r\rightarrow 1^-}\Vert f_r\Vert _{\mathcal{H}(b)}=\infty \). On the positive side, we prove the following approximation theorem for Toeplitz operators on general de Branges–Rovnyak spaces \(\mathcal{H}(b)\). If \((h_n)\) is a sequence in \(H^\infty \) such that \(\Vert h_n\Vert _{H^\infty }\le 1\) and \(h_n(0)\rightarrow 1\), then \(\Vert T_{\overline{h}_n}f-f\Vert _{\mathcal{H}(b)}\rightarrow 0\) for all \(f\in \mathcal{H}(b)\). Using this result, we give the first constructive proof that, if b is a nonextreme point of the unit ball of \(H^\infty \), then the polynomials are dense in \(\mathcal{H}(b)\).     

Semilinear elliptic equations with Hardy potential and subcritical source term

Let \(\Omega \) be a smooth bounded domain in \({\mathbb {R}}^N\) (\(N>2\)) and \(\delta (x):=\text {dist}\,(x,\partial \Omega )\). Assume \(\mu \in {\mathbb {R}}_+, \nu \) is a nonnegative finite measure on \(\partial \Omega \) and \(g \in C(\Omega \times {\mathbb {R}}_+)\). We study positive solutions of

$$\begin{aligned} -\Delta u - \frac{\mu }{\delta ^2} u = g(x,u) \text { in } \Omega , \qquad \text {tr}^*(u)=\nu . \end{aligned}$$

(P)

Here \(\text {tr}^*(u)\) denotes the normalized boundary trace of u which was recently introduced by Marcus and Nguyen (Ann Inst H Poincaré Anal Non Linéaire, 34, 69–88, 2017). We focus on the case \(0<\mu < C_H(\Omega )\) (the Hardy constant for \(\Omega \)) and provide qualitative properties of positive solutions of (P). When \(g(x,u)=u^q\) with \(q>0\), we prove that there is a critical value \(q^*\) (depending only on \(N, \mu \)) for (P) in the sense that if \(q<q^*\) then (P) possesses a solution under a smallness assumption on \(\nu \), but if \(q \ge q^*\) this problem admits no solution with isolated boundary singularity. Existence result is then extended to a more general setting where g is subcritical [see (1.28)]. We also investigate the case where g is linear or sublinear and give an existence result for (P).

     

Polynomially linked additive functions—II

We continue the study of additive functions \(f_k:R\rightarrow F \;(1\le k\le n)\) linked by an equation of the form \(\sum _{k=1}^n p_k(x)f_k(q_k(x))=0\), where the \(p_k\) and \(q_k\) are polynomials, R is an integral domain of characteristic 0, and F is the fraction field of R. A method is presented for solving all such equations. We also consider the special case \(\sum _{k=1}^n x^{m_k}f_k(x^{j_k})=0\) in which the \(p_k\) and \(q_k\) are monomials. In this case we show that if there is no duplication, i.e. if \((m_k,j_k)\ne (m_p,j_p)\) for \(k\ne p\), then each \(f_k\) is the sum of a linear function and a derivation of order at most \(n-1\). Furthermore, if this functional equation is not homogeneous then the maximal orders of the derivations are reduced in a specified way.     

Sandwich semigroups in locally small categories II: transformations

Fix sets X and Y, and write \(\mathcal P\mathcal T_{XY}\) for the set of all partial functions \(X\rightarrow Y\). Fix a partial function \({a:Y\rightarrow X}\), and define the operation \(\star _a\) on \(\mathcal P\mathcal T_{XY}\) by \(f\star _ag=fag\) for \(f,g\in \mathcal P\mathcal T_{XY}\). The sandwich semigroup \((\mathcal P\mathcal T_{XY},\star _a)\) is denoted \(\mathcal P\mathcal T_{XY}^a\). We apply general results from Part I to thoroughly describe the structural and combinatorial properties of \(\mathcal P\mathcal T_{XY}^a\), as well as its regular and idempotent-generated subsemigroups, \({\text {Reg}}(\mathcal P\mathcal T_{XY}^a)\) and \(\mathbb E(\mathcal P\mathcal T_{XY}^a)\). After describing regularity, stability and Green’s relations and preorders, we exhibit \({\text {Reg}}(\mathcal P\mathcal T_{XY}^a)\) as a pullback product of certain regular subsemigroups of the (non-sandwich) partial transformation semigroups \(\mathcal P\mathcal T_X\) and \(\mathcal P\mathcal T_Y\), and as a kind of “inflation” of \(\mathcal P\mathcal T_A\), where A is the image of the sandwich element a. We also calculate the rank (minimal size of a generating set) and, where appropriate, the idempotent rank (minimal size of an idempotent generating set) of \(\mathcal P\mathcal T_{XY}^a\), \({\text {Reg}}(\mathcal P\mathcal T_{XY}^a)\) and \(\mathbb E(\mathcal P\mathcal T_{XY}^a)\). The same program is also carried out for sandwich semigroups of totally defined functions and for injective partial functions. Several corollaries are obtained for various (non-sandwich) semigroups of (partial) transformations with restricted image, domain and/or kernel.     

Real-variable characterizations of anisotropic product Musielak-Orlicz Hardy spaces

Let A :=(A_1, A_2) be a pair of expansive dilations and φ : R~n×R~m×[0, ∞) → [0, ∞) an anisotropic product Musielak-Orlicz function. In this article, we introduce the anisotropic product Musielak-Orlicz Hardy space H~φ_A(R~n× R~m) via the anisotropic Lusin-area function and establish its atomic characterization, the g-function characterization, the g_λ~*-function characterization and the discrete wavelet characterization via first giving out an anisotropic product Peetre inequality of Musielak-Orlicz type. Moreover, we prove that finite atomic decomposition norm on a dense subspace of H~φ_A(R~n× R~m) is equivalent to the standard infinite atomic decomposition norm. As an application, we show that, for a given admissible triplet(φ, q, s), if T is a sublinear operator and maps all(φ, q, s)-atoms into uniformly bounded elements of some quasi-Banach spaces B, then T uniquely extends to a bounded sublinear operator from H~φ_A(R~n× R~m) to B. Another application is that we obtain the boundedness of anisotropic product singular integral operators from H~φ_A(R~n× R~m) to L~φ(R~n× R~m)and from H~φ_A(R~n×R~m) to itself, whose kernels are adapted to the action of A. The results of this article essentially extend the existing results for weighted product Hardy spaces on R~n× R~m and are new even for classical product Orlicz-Hardy spaces.     

Lifting Maps from the Symmetrized Polydisc in Small Dimensions

The spectral unit ball \(\Omega _n\) is the set of all \(n\times n\) matrices M with spectral radius less than 1. Let \(\pi (M) \in \mathbb {C}^n\) stand for the coefficients of the characteristic polynomial of a matrix M (up to signs), i.e. the elementary symmetric functions of its eigenvalues. The symmetrized polydisc is \({{\mathbb {G}}}_n:=\pi (\Omega _n)\). When investigating Nevanlinna–Pick problems for maps from the disk to the spectral ball, it is often useful to project the map to the symmetrized polydisc (for instance to obtain continuity results for the Lempert function): if \(\Phi \in {\mathrm {Hol}}(\mathbb {D}, \Omega _n)\), then \(\pi \circ \Phi \in {\mathrm {Hol}}(\mathbb {D}, {{\mathbb {G}}}_n)\). Given a map \(\varphi \in {\mathrm {Hol}}(\mathbb {D}, {{\mathbb {G}}}_n)\), we are looking for necessary and sufficient conditions for this map to “lift through given matrices”, i.e. find \(\Phi \) as above so that \(\pi \circ \Phi = \varphi \) and \(\Phi (\alpha _j) = A_j\), \(1\le j \le N\). A natural necessary condition is \(\varphi (\alpha _j)=\pi (A_j)\), \(1\le j \le N\). When the matrices \(A_j\) are derogatory (i.e. do not admit a cyclic vector) new necessary conditions appear, involving derivatives of \(\varphi \) at the points \(\alpha _j\). We prove that those conditions are necessary and sufficient for a local lifting. We give a formula which performs the global lifting in small dimensions (\(n \le 5\)), and a counter-example to show that the formula fails in dimensions 6 and above.     

Gradient Estimates for Commutators of Square Roots of Elliptic Operators with Complex Bounded Measurable Coefficients

Let \(L=-\mathrm{div}(A\nabla )\) be a second order divergence form elliptic operator and A an accretive \(n\times n\) matrix with bounded measurable complex coefficients in \({\mathbb R}^n\). Let \(\nabla b\in L^n({\mathbb R}^n)\,(n>2)\). In this paper, we prove that the commutator generated by b and the square root of L, which is defined by \([b,\sqrt{L}]f(x)=b(x)\sqrt{L}f(x)-\sqrt{L}(bf)(x)\), is bounded from the homogenous Sobolev space \({\dot{L}}_1^2({\mathbb R}^n)\) to \(L^2({\mathbb R}^n)\).     

Dimensions of irreducible modules for partition algebras and tensor power multiplicities for symmetric and alternating groups

The partition algebra \(\mathsf {P}_k(n)\) and the symmetric group \(\mathsf {S}_n\) are in Schur–Weyl duality on the k-fold tensor power \(\mathsf {M}_n^{\otimes k}\) of the permutation module \(\mathsf {M}_n\) of \(\mathsf {S}_n\), so there is a surjection \(\mathsf {P}_k(n) \rightarrow \mathsf {Z}_k(n) := \mathsf {End}_{\mathsf {S}_n}(\mathsf {M}_n^{\otimes k})\), which is an isomorphism when \(n \ge 2k\). We prove a dimension formula for the irreducible modules of the centralizer algebra \(\mathsf {Z}_k(n)\) in terms of Stirling numbers of the second kind. Via Schur–Weyl duality, these dimensions equal the multiplicities of the irreducible \(\mathsf {S}_n\)-modules in \(\mathsf {M}_n^{\otimes k}\). Our dimension expressions hold for any \(n \ge 1\) and \(k\ge 0\). Our methods are based on an analog of Frobenius reciprocity that we show holds for the centralizer algebras of arbitrary finite groups and their subgroups acting on a finite-dimensional module. This enables us to generalize the above result to various analogs of the partition algebra including the centralizer algebra for the alternating group acting on \(\mathsf {M}_n^{\otimes k}\) and the quasi-partition algebra corresponding to tensor powers of the reflection representation of \(\mathsf {S}_n\).     

Semidefinite bounds for nonbinary codes based on quadruples

For nonnegative integers q, n, d, let \(A_q(n,d)\) denote the maximum cardinality of a code of length n over an alphabet [q] with q letters and with minimum distance at least d. We consider the following upper bound on \(A_q(n,d)\). For any k, let \(\mathcal{C}_k\) be the collection of codes of cardinality at most k. Then \(A_q(n,d)\) is at most the maximum value of \(\sum _{v\in [q]^n}x(\{v\})\), where x is a function \(\mathcal{C}_4\rightarrow {\mathbb {R}}_+\) such that \(x(\emptyset )=1\) and \(x(C)=\!0\) if C has minimum distance less than d, and such that the \(\mathcal{C}_2\times \mathcal{C}_2\) matrix \((x(C\cup C'))_{C,C'\in \mathcal{C}_2}\) is positive semidefinite. By the symmetry of the problem, we can apply representation theory to reduce the problem to a semidefinite programming problem with order bounded by a polynomial in n. It yields the new upper bounds \(A_4(6,3)\le 176\), \(A_4(7,3)\le 596\), \(A_4(7,4)\le 155\), \(A_5(7,4)\le 489\), and \(A_5(7,5)\le 87\).