Powers in Finitely Generated Groups

In this paper we study the set of -powers in certain finitely generated groups . We show that, if is soluble or linear, and contains a finite index subgroup, then is nilpotent-by-finite. We also show that, if is linear and has finite index (i.e. may be covered by finitely many translations of ), then is soluble-by-finite. The proof applies invariant measures on amenable groups, number-theoretic results concerning the -unit equation, the theory of algebraic groups and strong approximation results for linear groups in arbitrary characteristic.

     

Defect zero blocks for finite simple groups

We classify those finite simple groups whose Brauer graph (or decomposition matrix) has a -block with defect 0, completing an investigation of many authors. The only finite simple groups whose defect zero blocks remained unclassified were the alternating groups . Here we show that these all have a -block with defect 0 for every prime . This follows from proving the same result for every symmetric group , which in turn follows as a consequence of the -core partition conjecture, that every non-negative integer possesses at least one -core partition, for any . For , we reduce this problem to Lagrange's Theorem that every non-negative integer can be written as the sum of four squares. The only case with , that was not covered in previous work, was the case . This we prove with a very different argument, by interpreting the generating function for -core partitions in terms of modular forms, and then controlling the size of the coefficients using Deligne's Theorem (née the Weil Conjectures). We also consider congruences for the number of -blocks of , proving a conjecture of Garvan, that establishes certain multiplicative congruences when . By using a result of Serre concerning the divisibility of coefficients of modular forms, we show that for any given prime and positive integer , the number of blocks with defect 0 in is a multiple of for almost all . We also establish that any given prime divides the number of modularly irreducible representations of , for almost all .

     

Some New Homogeneous Einstein Metrics on Symmetric Spaces

We classify homogeneous Einstein metrics on compact irreducible symmetric spaces. In particular, we consider symmetric spaces with rank, not isometric to a compact Lie group. Whenever there exists a closed proper subgroup of Isom acting transitively on we find all -homogeneous (non-symmetric) Einstein metrics on .

     

Uniform harmonic approximation of bounded functions

Let be an open set in and be a relatively closed subset of . We characterize those pairs which have the following property: every function which is bounded and continuous on and harmonic on can be uniformly approximated by functions harmonic on . Several related results concerning both harmonic and superharmonic approximation are also established.

     

Covering the integers by arithmetic sequences. II

Let ( be a system of arithmetic sequences where and . For system will be called an (exact) -cover of if every integer is covered by at least (exactly) times. In this paper we reveal further connections between the common differences in an (exact) -cover of and Egyptian fractions. Here are some typical results for those -covers of : (a) For any there are at least positive integers in the form where . (b) When (, either or , and for each positive integer the binomial coefficient can be written as the sum of some denominators of the rationals if forms an exact -cover of . (c) If is not an -cover of , then have at least distinct fractional parts and for each there exist such that (mod 1). If forms an exact -cover of with or () then for every and there is an such that (mod 1).

     

A Concordance Extension Theorem

Let be a manifold approximate fibration between closed manifolds, where , and let be the mapping cylinder of . In this paper it is shown that if is any concordance on , then there exists a concordance such that and . As an application, if and are closed manifolds where is a locally flat submanifold of and and , then a concordance extends to a concordance on such that . This uses the fact that under these hypotheses there exists a manifold approximate fibration , where is a closed -manifold, such that the mapping cylinder is homeomorphic to a closed neighborhood of in by a homeomorphism which is the identity on .

     

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 .

     

A group of paths in

We define a group structure on the set of compact ``minimal' paths in . We classify all finitely generated subgroups of this group : they are free products of free abelian groups and surface groups. Moreover, each such group occurs in . The subgroups of isomorphic to surface groups arise from certain topological -forms on the corresponding surfaces. We construct examples of such -forms for cohomology classes corresponding to certain eigenvectors for the action on cohomology of a pseudo-Anosov diffeomorphism. Using we construct a non-polygonal tiling problem in , that is, a finite set of tiles whose corresponding tilings are not equivalent to those of any set of polygonal tiles. The group has applications to combinatorial tiling problems of the type: given a set of tiles and a region , can be tiled by translated copies of tiles in ?

     

On polarized surfaces

Let be a smooth projective surface over and an ample Cartier divisor on . If the Kodaira dimension or , the author proved , where . If , then the author studied with . In this paper, we study the polarized surface with , , and .

     

On the ordering of -modal cycles

The forcing relation on -modal cycles is studied. If is an -modal cycle then the -modal cycles with block structure that force form a -horseshoe above . If -modal forces , and does not have a block structure over , then forces a -horseshoe of simple extensions of .

     

Abstract functions with continuous differences and Namioka spaces

Let be a semigroup and a topological space. Let be an Abelian topological group. The right differences of a function are defined by for . Let be continuous at the identity of for all in a neighbourhood of . We give conditions on or range under which is continuous for any topological space . We also seek conditions on under which we conclude that is continuous at for arbitrary . This led us to introduce new classes of semigroups containing all complete metric and locally countably compact quasitopological groups. In this paper we study these classes and explore their relation with Namioka spaces.

     

Topological entropy of standard type monotone twist maps

We study invariant measures of families of monotone twist maps with periodic Morse potential . We prove that there exist a constant such that the topological entropy satisfies . In particular, for . We show also that there exist arbitrary large such that has nonuniformly hyperbolic invariant measures with positive metric entropy. For large , the measures are hyperbolic and, for a class of potentials which includes , the Lyapunov exponent of the map with invariant measure grows monotonically with .

     

C*-Algebras with the Approximate Positive Factorization Property

We say that a unital -algebra has the approximate positive factorization property (APFP) if every element of is a norm limit of products of positive elements of . (There is also a definition for the nonunital case.) T. Quinn has recently shown that a unital AF algebra has the APFP if and only if it has no finite dimensional quotients. This paper is a more systematic investigation of -algebras with the APFP. We prove various properties of such algebras. For example: They have connected invertible group, trivial , and stable rank 1. In the unital case, the group separates the tracial states. The APFP passes to matrix algebras, and if is an ideal in such that and have the APFP, then so does . We also give some new examples of -algebras with the APFP, including type factors and infinite-dimensional simple unital direct limits of homogeneous -algebras with slow dimension growth, real rank zero, and trivial group. Simple direct limits of homogeneous -algebras with slow dimension growth which have the APFP must have real rank zero, but we also give examples of (nonsimple) unital algebras with the APFP which do not have real rank zero. Our analysis leads to the introduction of a new concept of rank for a -algebra that may be of interest in the future.

     

An -minimal Boolean algebra

For every linear order we define a notion of -minimal Boolean algebra and then give a consistent example of an -minimal algebra. The Stone space of our algebra contains a point such that is an example of a countably tight, initially -compact, non-compact space. This answers a question of Dow and van Douwen.

     

Invertibility preserving linear maps on

For Banach spaces and , we show that every unital bijective invertibility preserving linear map between and is a Jordan isomorphism. The same conclusion holds for maps between and .

     

Real connective K-theory and the quaternion group

Let be the real connective K-theory spectrum. We compute and for groups whose Sylow 2-subgroup is quaternion of order 8. Using this we compute the coefficients of the fixed points of the Tate spectrum for and . The results provide a counterexample to the optimistic conjecture of Greenlees and May [9, Conj. 13.4], by showing, in particular, that is not a wedge of Eilenberg-Mac Lane spectra, as occurs for groups of prime order.

     

A class of counterexamples to the Gel´fand-Kirillov conjecture

Let be a connected non-special semisimple algebraic group and let be a finite dimensional -representation such that has trivial generic stabilizer. Let . Then the semi-direct product is a counter-example to the Gel´fand-Kirillov conjecture.

     

A problem of Földes and Puri on the Wiener process

Let be a real-valued Wiener process starting from 0, and be the right-continuous inverse process of its local time at 0. Földes and Puri [3] raise the problem of studying the almost sure asymptotic behavior of as tends to infinity, i.e. they ask: how long does stay in a tube before ``crossing very much" a given level? In this note, both limsup and liminf laws of the iterated logarithm are provided for .

     

On quadratic forms of height two and a theorem of Wadsworth

Let and be anisotropic quadratic forms over a field of characteristic not . Their function fields and are said to be equivalent (over ) if and are isotropic. We consider the case where and is divisible by an -fold Pfister form. We determine those forms for which becomes isotropic over if , and provide partial results for . These results imply that if and are equivalent and , then is similar to over . This together with already known results yields that if is of height and degree or , and if , then and are equivalent iff and are isomorphic over .