Group divisible designs with large block sizes

For positive integers n, k with \(3\le k\le n\), let \(X=\mathbb {F}_{2^n}\setminus \{0,1\}\), \({\mathcal {G}}=\{\{x,x+1\}:x\in X\}\), and \({\mathcal {B}}_k=\left\{ \{x_1,x_2,\ldots ,x_k\}\!\subset \!X:\sum \limits _{i=1}^kx_i=1,\ \sum \limits _{i\in I}x_i\!\ne \!1\ \mathrm{for\ any}\ \emptyset \!\ne \!I\!\subsetneqq \!\{1,2,\ldots ,k\}\right\} \). Lee et al. used the inclusion–exclusion principle to show that the triple \((X,{\mathcal {G}},{\mathcal {B}}_k)\) is a \((k,\lambda _k)\)-GDD of type \(2^{2^{n-1}-1}\) for \(k\in \{3,4,5,6,7\}\) where \(\lambda _k=\frac{\prod _{i=3}^{k-1}(2^n-2^i)}{(k-2)!}\) (Lee et al. in Des Codes Cryptogr,  https://doi.org/10.1007/s10623-017-0395-8, 2017). They conjectured that \((X,{\mathcal {G}},{\mathcal {B}}_k)\) is also a \((k,\lambda _k)\)-GDD of type \(2^{2^{n-1}-1}\) for any integer \(k\ge 8\). In this paper, we use a similar construction and counting principles to show that there is a \((k,\lambda _k)\)-GDD of type \((q^2-q)^{(q^{n-1}-1)/(q-1)}\) for any prime power q and any integers k, n with \(3\le k\le n\) where \(\lambda _k=\frac{\prod _{i=3}^{k-1}(q^n-q^i)}{(k-2)!}\). Consequently, their conjecture holds. Such a method is also generalized to yield a \((k,\lambda _k)\)-GDD of type \((q^{\ell +1}-q^{\ell })^{(q^{n-\ell }-1)/(q-1)}\) where \(\lambda _k=\frac{\prod _{i=3}^{k-1}(q^n-q^{\ell +i-1})}{(k-2)!}\) and \(k+\ell \le n+1\).     

Ramanujan-type congruences for overpartitions modulo 16

Let \(\bar{p}(n)\) denote the number of overpartitions of \(n\). Recently, Fortin–Jacob–Mathieu and Hirschhorn–Sellers independently obtained 2-, 3- and 4-dissections of the generating function for \(\bar{p}(n)\) and derived a number of congruences for \(\bar{p}(n)\) modulo 4, 8 and 64 including \(\bar{p}(8n+7)\equiv 0 \pmod {64}\) for \(n\ge 0\). In this paper, we give a 16-dissection of the generating function for \(\bar{p}(n)\) modulo 16 and show that \(\bar{p}(16n+14)\equiv 0\pmod {16}\) for \(n\ge 0\). Moreover, using the \(2\)-adic expansion of the generating function for \(\bar{p}(n)\) according to Mahlburg, we obtain that \(\bar{p}(\ell ^2n+r\ell )\equiv 0\pmod {16}\), where \(n\ge 0\), \(\ell \equiv -1\pmod {8}\) is an odd prime and \(r\) is a positive integer with \(\ell \not \mid r\). In particular, for \(\ell =7\) and \(n\ge 0\), we get \(\bar{p}(49n+7)\equiv 0\pmod {16}\) and \(\bar{p}(49n+14)\equiv 0\pmod {16}\). We also find four congruence relations: \(\bar{p}(4n)\equiv (-1)^n\bar{p}(n) \pmod {16}\) for \(n\ge 0\), \(\bar{p}(4n)\equiv (-1)^n\bar{p}(n)\pmod {32}\) where \(n\) is not a square of an odd positive integer, \(\bar{p}(4n)\equiv (-1)^n\bar{p}(n)\pmod {64}\) for \(n\not \equiv 1,2,5\pmod {8}\) and \(\bar{p}(4n)\equiv (-1)^n\bar{p}(n)\pmod {128}\) for \(n\equiv 0\pmod {4}\).     

A generalization of total graphs

Let R be a commutative ring with nonzero identity, \(L_{n}(R)\) be the set of all lower triangular \(n\times n\) matrices, and U be a triangular subset of \(R^{n}\), i.e., the product of any lower triangular matrix with the transpose of any element of U belongs to U. The graph \(GT^{n}_{U}(R^n)\) is a simple graph whose vertices consists of all elements of \(R^{n}\), and two distinct vertices \((x_{1},\dots ,x_{n})\) and \((y_{1},\dots ,y_{n})\) are adjacent if and only if \((x_{1}+y_{1}, \ldots ,x_{n}+y_{n})\in U\). The graph \(GT^{n}_{U}(R^n)\) is a generalization for total graphs. In this paper, we investigate the basic properties of \(GT^{n}_{U}(R^n)\). Moreover, we study the planarity of the graphs \(GT^{n}_{U}(U)\), \(GT^{n}_{U}(R^{n}{\setminus } U)\) and \(GT^{n}_{U}(R^n)\).     

Weak type (1, 1) of some operators for the Laplacian with drift

Let \(v = (v_1, \ldots , v_n)\) be a vector in \(\mathbb {R}^n {\setminus } \{ 0 \}\). Consider the Laplacian on \(\mathbb {R}^n\) with drift \(\Delta _{v} = \sum _{i = 1}^n \Big ( \frac{\partial ^2}{\partial x_i^2} + 2 v_i \frac{\partial }{\partial x_i} \Big )\) and the measure \(d\mu (x) = e^{2 \langle v, x \rangle } dx\), with respect to which \(\Delta _{v}\) is self-adjoint. Let d and \(\nabla \) denote the Euclidean distance and the gradient operator on \(\mathbb {R}^n\). Consider the space \((\mathbb {R}^n, d, d\mu )\), which has the property of exponential volume growth. We obtain weak type (1, 1) for the Riesz transform \(\nabla (- \Delta _{v} )^{-\frac{1}{2}}\) and for the heat maximal operator, with respect to \(d\mu \). Further, we prove that the uncentered Hardy–Littlewood maximal operator is bounded on \(L^p\) for \(1 < p \le +\infty \) but not of weak type (1, 1) if \(n \ge 2\).     

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 \(L^2({\mathbb R}^n)\).     

Improved upper bounds for partial spreads

A partial \((k-1)\)-spread in \({\text {PG}}(n-1,q)\) is a collection of \((k-1)\)-dimensional subspaces with trivial intersection. So far, the maximum size of a partial \((k-1)\)-spread in \({\text {PG}}(n-1,q)\) was known for the cases \(n\equiv 0\pmod k\), \(n\equiv 1\pmod k\), and \(n\equiv 2\pmod k\) with the additional requirements \(q=2\) and \(k=3\). We completely resolve the case \(n\equiv 2\pmod k\) for the binary case \(q=2\).     

Regularity for Inhomogeneous Dirichlet Problems of Some Schrödinger Equations on Domains

Let \(n\ge 3, \Omega \) be a bounded, simply connected and semiconvex domain in \({\mathbb {R}}^n\) and \(L_{\Omega }:=-\Delta +V\) a Schrödinger operator on \(L^2 (\Omega )\) with the Dirichlet boundary condition, where \(\Delta \) denotes the Laplace operator and the potential \(0\le V\) belongs to the reverse Hölder class \(RH_{q_0}({\mathbb {R}}^n)\) for some \(q_0\in (\max \{n/2,2\},\infty ]\). Assume that the growth function \(\varphi :\,{\mathbb {R}}^n\times [0,\infty ) \rightarrow [0,\infty )\) satisfies that \(\varphi (x,\cdot )\) is an Orlicz function and \(\varphi (\cdot ,t)\in {\mathbb {A}}_{\infty }({\mathbb {R}}^n)\) (the class of uniformly Muckenhoupt weights). Let \(H_{\varphi ,\,L_{{\mathbb {R}}^n},\,r}(\Omega )\) be the Musielak–Orlicz–Hardy space whose elements are restrictions of elements of the Musielak–Orlicz–Hardy space, associated with \(L_{{\mathbb {R}}^n}:=-\Delta +V\) on \({\mathbb {R}}^n\), to \(\Omega \). In this article, the authors show that the operators \(VL^{-1}_\Omega \) and \(\nabla ^2L^{-1}_\Omega \) are bounded from \(L^1(\Omega )\) to weak-\(L^1(\Omega )\), from \(L^p(\Omega )\) to itself, with \(p\in (1,2]\), and also from \(H_{\varphi ,\,L_{{\mathbb {R}}^n},\,r}(\Omega )\) to the Musielak–Orlicz space \(L^\varphi (\Omega )\) or to \(H_{\varphi ,\,L_{{\mathbb {R}}^n},\,r}(\Omega )\) itself. As applications, the boundedness of \(\nabla ^2{\mathbb {G}}_D\) on \(L^p(\Omega )\), with \(p\in (1,2]\), and from \(H_{\varphi ,\,L_{{\mathbb {R}}^n},\,r}(\Omega )\) to \(L^\varphi (\Omega )\) or to \(H_{\varphi ,\,L_{{\mathbb {R}}^n},\,r}(\Omega )\) itself is obtained, where \({\mathbb {G}}_D\) denotes the Dirichlet Green operator associated with \(L_\Omega \). All these results are new even for the Hardy space \(H^1_{L_{{\mathbb {R}}^n},\,r}(\Omega )\), which is just \(H_{\varphi ,\,L_{{\mathbb {R}}^n},\,r}(\Omega )\) with \(\varphi (x,t):=t\) for all \(x\in {\mathbb {R}}^n\) and \(t\in [0,\infty )\).     

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.     

Fluctuation Theory for Markov Random Walks

Two fundamental theorems by Spitzer–Erickson and Kesten–Maller on the fluctuation-type (positive divergence, negative divergence or oscillation) of a real-valued random walk \((S_{n})_{n\ge 0}\) with iid increments \(X_{1},X_{2},\ldots \) and the existence of moments of various related quantities like the first passage into \((x,\infty )\) and the last exit time from \((-\infty ,x]\) for arbitrary \(x\ge 0\) are studied in the Markov-modulated situation when the \(X_{n}\) are governed by a positive recurrent Markov chain \(M=(M_{n})_{n\ge 0}\) on a countable state space \(\mathcal {S}\); thus, for a Markov random walk \((M_{n},S_{n})_{n\ge 0}\). Our approach is based on the natural strategy to draw on the results in the iid case for the embedded ordinary random walks \((S_{\tau _{n}(i)})_{n\ge 0}\), where \(\tau _{1}(i),\tau _{2}(i),\ldots \) denote the successive return times of M to state i, and an analysis of the excursions of the walk between these epochs. However, due to these excursions, generalizations of the aforementioned theorems are surprisingly more complicated and require the introduction of various excursion measures so as to characterize the existence of moments of different quantities.     

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 \(\mathcal{H}(b)\).     

Negative Ricci curvature on some non-solvable Lie groups

We show that for any non-trivial representation \((V, \pi )\) of \(\mathfrak {u}(2)\) with the center acting as multiples of the identity, the semidirect product \(\mathfrak {u}(2) \ltimes _\pi V\) admits a metric with negative Ricci curvature that can be explicitly obtained. It is proved that \(\mathfrak {u}(2) \ltimes _\pi V\) degenerates to a solvable Lie algebra that admits a metric with negative Ricci curvature. An n-dimensional Lie group with compact Levi factor \(\mathrm {SU}(2)\) admitting a left invariant metric with negative Ricci is therefore obtained for any \(n \ge 7\).     

On Weak Invariance Principles for Partial Sums

Given a sequence of random functionals \(\bigl \{X_k(u)\bigr \}_{k \in \mathbb {Z}}\), \(u \in \mathbf{I}^d\), \(d \ge 1\), the normalized partial sums \(\check{S}_{nt}(u) = n^{-1/2}\bigl (X_1(u) + \cdots + X_{\lfloor n t \rfloor }(u)\bigr )\), \(t \in [0,1]\) and its polygonal version \({S}_{nt}(u)\) are considered under a weak dependence assumption and \(p > 2\) moments. Weak invariance principles in the space of continuous functions and càdlàg functions are established. A particular emphasis is put on the process \(\check{S}_{nt}(\widehat{\theta })\), where \(\widehat{\theta } \xrightarrow {\mathbb {P}} \theta \), and weaker moment conditions (\(p = 2\) if \(d = 1\)) are assumed.     

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.

     

Intrinsic Structures of Certain Musielak–Orlicz Hardy Spaces

For any \(p\in (0,\,1]\), let \(H^{\Phi _p}(\mathbb {R}^n)\) be the Musielak–Orlicz Hardy space associated with the Musielak–Orlicz growth function \(\Phi _p\), defined by setting, for any \(x\in \mathbb {R}^n\) and \(t\in [0,\,\infty )\),

$$\begin{aligned}&\Phi _{p}(x,\,t)\\&\quad := {\left\{ \begin{array}{ll} \displaystyle \frac{t}{\log {(e+t)}+[t(1+|x|)^n]^{1-p}}&{} \quad \text {when}\ n(1/p-1)\notin \mathbb N \cup \{0\},\\ \displaystyle \frac{t}{\log (e+t)+[t(1+|x|)^n]^{1-p}[\log (e+|x|)]^p}&{} \quad \text {when}\ n(1/p-1)\in \mathbb N\cup \{0\}, \end{array}\right. } \end{aligned}$$

which is the sharp target space of the bilinear decomposition of the product of the Hardy space \(H^p(\mathbb {R}^n)\) and its dual. Moreover, \(H^{\Phi _1}(\mathbb {R}^n)\) is the prototype appearing in the real-variable theory of general Musielak–Orlicz Hardy spaces. In this article, the authors find a new structure of the space \(H^{\Phi _p}(\mathbb {R}^n)\) by showing that, for any \(p\in (0,\,1]\), \(H^{\Phi _p}(\mathbb {R}^n)=H^{\phi _0}(\mathbb {R}^n) +H_{W_p}^p({{{\mathbb {R}}}^n})\) and, for any \(p\in (0,\,1)\), \(H^{\Phi _p}(\mathbb {R}^n)=H^{1}(\mathbb {R}^n) +H_{W_p}^p({{{\mathbb {R}}}^n})\), where \(H^1(\mathbb {R}^n)\) denotes the classical real Hardy space, \(H^{\phi _0}({{{\mathbb {R}}}^n})\) the Orlicz–Hardy space associated with the Orlicz function \(\phi _0(t):=t/\log (e+t)\) for any \(t\in [0,\infty )\), and \(H_{W_p}^p(\mathbb {R}^n)\) the weighted Hardy space associated with certain weight function \(W_p(x)\) that is comparable to \(\Phi _p(x,1)\) for any \(x\in \mathbb {R}^n\). As an application, the authors further establish an interpolation theorem of quasilinear operators based on this new structure.

     

A Ramanujan-type congruence modulo 5 for 4-colored generalized Frobenius partitions

In his 1984 AMS Memoir, Andrews introduced the \(k\)-colored generalized Frobenius partition function \(c\phi _k(n)\) which denotes the number of generalized Frobenius partitions of \(n\) with \(k\) colors. Recently, Baruah and Sarmah, Lin, and Sellers established several Ramanujan-type congruences for \(c\phi _4(n)\). In this paper, employing some theta identities due to Ramanujan, the \((p, k)\)-parametrization of theta functions given by Alaca, Alaca, and Williams, and some results of Baruah and Sarmah, we prove that \(c\phi _4(20n+11)\equiv 0\ (\mathrm{mod}\ 5)\).     

Ramanujan-style proof of $$p_{-3}(11n+7) \equiv 0\ (\mathrm{mod\ }11)$$

In this note, we establish two identities of \((q;\,q)_\infty ^8\) by using Jacobi’s four-square theorem and two of Ramanujan’s identities. As an important consequence, we present one Ramanujan-style proof of the congruence \(p_{-3}(11n+7)\equiv 0\ (\mathrm{mod\ }11)\), where \(p_{-3}(n)\) denotes the number of 3-color partitions of n.     

Some results on generalized strong external difference families

A generalized strong external difference family (briefly \((v, m; k_1,\dots ,k_m; \lambda _1,\dots ,\lambda _m)\)-GSEDF) was introduced by Paterson and Stinson in 2016. In this paper, we give some nonexistence results for GSEDFs. In particular, we prove that a \((v, 3;k_1,k_2,k_3; \lambda _1,\lambda _2,\lambda _3)\)-GSEDF does not exist when \(k_1+k_2+k_3< v\). We also give a first recursive construction for GSEDFs and prove that if there is a \((v,2;2\lambda ,\frac{v-1}{2};\lambda ,\lambda )\)-GSEDF, then there is a \((vt,2;4\lambda ,\frac{vt-1}{2};2\lambda ,2\lambda )\)-GSEDF with \(v>1\), \(t>1\) and \(v\equiv t\equiv 1\pmod 2\). Then we use it to obtain some new GSEDFs for \(m=2\). In particular, for any prime power q with \(q\equiv 1\pmod 4\), we show that there exists a \((qt, 2;(q-1)2^{n-1},\frac{qt-1}{2};(q-1)2^{n-2},(q-1)2^{n-2})\)-GSEDF, where \(t=p_1p_2\dots p_n\), \(p_i>1\), \(1\le i\le n\), \(p_1, p_2,\dots ,p_n\) are odd integers.     

On the restricted partition function

For a vector \(\mathbf a = (a_1,\ldots ,a_r)\) of positive integers, we prove formulas for the restricted partition function \(p_{\mathbf a}(n): = \) the number of integer solutions \((x_1,\dots ,x_r)\) to \(\sum _{j=1}^r a_jx_j=n\) with \(x_1\ge 0, \ldots , x_r\ge 0\) and its polynomial part.     

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.