Let Qm be the HNN extension of Z/m × Z/m where the stable letter conjugates the first factor to the second. We explore small presentations of the groups Γm,n = Qm* Qn. We show that for certain choices of (m,n), for example (2,3), the group Γm,n has a relation gap unless it admits a presentation with at most 3 defining relations, and we establish restrictions on the possible form of such a presentation. We then associate to each (m,n) a 3-complex with 16 cells. This 3-complex is a counterexample to the D(2) conjecture if Γm,n has a relation gap.

We show that for general linear groups GLn(q) as well as for q-Schur algebras the knowledge of the modular Alvis–Curtis duality over fields of characteristic ℓ, ℓ ∤ q, is equivalent to the knowledge of the decomposition numbers.

We determine the automorphism group for a large class of affine quadrics over a field, viewed as affine algebraic varieties. The proof uses a fundamental theorem of Karpenko's in the theory of quadratic forms [13], along with some useful arguments of birational geometry. In particular, we find that the automorphism group of the n-sphere {x02+···+xn2=1} over the real numbers is just the orthogonal group O(n+1) whenever n is a power of 2. It is not known whether the same is true for arbitrary n. This result is reminiscent of Wood's theorem that when n is a power of 2, every real polynomial mapping from the n-sphere to a lower-dimensional sphere is constant [22].

Given two integrally equivalent integral quadratic forms in at least three variables and with cube-free determinant, we establish an upper bound on the smallest unimodular matrix transforming one of the forms into the other. This bound is polynomial in the height of the two forms involved, confirming a conjecture of Masser for the class of forms considered.

In this paper we completely solve a family of Thue inequalities defined over the field of functions , namely deg (X4−4cX3Y+(6c+2)X2Y2+4cXY3+Y4) ≤ deg c, where the solutions x,y come from the ring and the parameter is some non-constant polynomial.

Let K be an imaginary quadratic field, and let F be an abelian extension of K, containing the Hilbert class field of K. We fix a rational prime p > 2 which does not divide the number of roots of unity in the Hilbert class field of K. Also, we assume that the prime p does not divide the order of the Galois group G:=Gal(F/K). Let AF be the ideal class group of F, and EF be the group of global units of F. The purpose of this paper is to study the Galois module structures of AF and EF.

We propose a way of associating to each finitely generated monoid or semigroup a formal language, called its loop problem. In the case of a group, the loop problem is essentially the same as the word problem in the sense of combinatorial group theory. Like the word problem for groups, the loop problem is regular if and only if the monoid is finite. We also study the case in which the loop problem is context-free, showing that a celebrated group-theoretic result of Muller and Schupp extends to describe completely simple semigroups with context-free loop problems. We consider right cancellative monoids, establishing connections between the loop problem and the structural theory of these semigroups by showing that the syntactic monoid of the loop problem is the inverse hull of the monoid.

Let G be a locally compact group and be its largest semigroup compactification. Then sx≠x in whenever s is an element in G other than e. This result was proved by Ellis in 1960 for the case G discrete (and so is the Stone–Čech compactification βG of G), and by Veech in 1977 for any locally compact group. We study this property in the WAP – compactification of G; and in , we look at the situation when xs≠x. The points are separated by some weakly almost periodic functions which we are able to construct on a class of locally compact groups, which includes the so-called E-groups introduced by C. Chou and which is much larger than the class of SIN groups. The other consequences deduced with these functions are: a generalization of some theorems on the regularity of due to Ruppert and Bouziad, an analogue in of the “local structure theorem” proved by J. Pym in , and an improvement of some earlier results proved by the author and J. Baker on .

In this paper, we look at the Diophantine equation (0.1) Under the ABC conjecture, we show that it has only finitely many nontrivial solutions. Unconditionally, we show that the set of n for which the above equation admits an integer solution a1,. . .,at is of asymptotic density zero.

Inspired by p-adic (and real) principal value integrals, we introduce motivic principal value integrals associated to multi-valued rational differential forms on smooth algebraic varieties. We investigate the natural question whether (for complete varieties) this notion is a birational invariant. The answer seems to be related to the dichotomy of the Minimal Model Program.

We first study the minimum total curvature of a knot when it is embedded on the cubic lattice. Let be a knot or link with a lattice embedding of minimum total curvature among all possible lattice embeddings of . We show that there exist positive constants c1 and c2 such that for any knot type . Furthermore we show that the powers of in the above inequalities are sharp hence cannot be improved in general. Our results and observations show that lattice embeddings with minimum total curvature are quite different from those with minimum or near minimum lattice embedding length. In addition, we discuss the relationship between minimal total curvature and minimal ropelength for a given knot type. At the end of the paper, we study the total curvatures of smooth thick knots and show that there are some essential differences between the total curvatures of smooth thick knots and lattice knots.

Let M be a module over the ring R. The finitary automorphism group of M over R is and the Artinian-finitary automorphism group of M over R is We continue our study begun in [9] and [12] of the relationship between these two in some ways similar, but actually quite different types of automorphism group. Our study here involves the generalized finitary group embeds into some finitely generated R-module which does not fit our earlier pattern of generalized finitary groups as described in [8].

The paper begins by overviewing the basic facts on geometric exceptional collections. Then we derive, for any coherent sheaf on a smooth projective variety with a geometric collection, two spectral sequences: the first one abuts to and the second one to its cohomology. The main goal of the paper is to generalize Castelnuovo–Mumford regularity for coherent sheaves on projective spaces to coherent sheaves on smooth projective varieties X with a geometric collection σ. We define the notion of regularity of a coherent sheaf on X with respect to σ. We show that the basic formal properties of the Castelnuovo–Mumford regularity of coherent sheaves over projective spaces continue to hold in this new setting and we show that in case of coherent sheaves on and for a suitable geometric collection of coherent sheaves on both notions of regularity coincide. Finally, we carefully study the regularity of coherent sheaves on a smooth quadric hypersurface (n odd) with respect to a suitable geometric collection and we compare it with the Castelnuovo–Mumford regularity of their extension by zero in .

Let be a -grading of a simple Lie algebra . The commuting variety associated with such a grading is the variety of pairs of commuting elements from . We study the problem of irreducibility of these varieties. Using invariant-theoretic technique, we present new instances of reducible and irreducible commuting varieties.

The reversible elements of a group are those elements that are conjugate to their own inverse. A reversible element is said to be reversible by an involution if it is conjugate to its own inverse by an involution. In this paper, we classify the reversible elements and the elements reversible by involutions in the group of quaternionic Möbius transformations.

We study the Noether–Lefschetz locus of a very ample line bundle L on an arbitrary smooth threefold Y. Building on results of Green, Voisin and Otwinowska, we give explicit bounds, depending only on the Castelnuovo–Mumford regularity properties of L, on the codimension of the components of the Noether–Lefschetz locus of |L|.

This paper establishes the Manin conjecture for a certain non-split singular del Pezzo surface of degree four . In fact, if U ⊂ X is the open subset formed by deleting the lines from X, and H is the usual projective height function on , then the height zeta function is analytically continued to the half-plane ℜe(s) > 17/20.

We show that any closed hyperbolic surface admitting a conformal automorphism with “many” fixed points is uniformly quasiconformally homogeneous, with constant uniformly bounded away from 1. In particular, there is a uniform lower bound on the quasiconformal homogeneity constant for all hyperelliptic surfaces. In addition, we introduce more restrictive notions of quasiconformal homogeneity and bound the associated quasiconformal homogeneity constants uniformly away from 1 for all hyperbolic surfaces.

Let H denote a subgroup of the unitary group U(R, Λ) which is normalized by EU(J, ΓJ) for some form ideal (J, ΓJ) of a commutative form ring (R, Λ). We prove that H satisfies a “sandwich” property, i.e., there exists a form ideal (I ΓI) such that for some form ideal (I : J7, Ω). This answers a conjecture of Bak (1967) in the stable case.

Suppose that f(z) is a transcendental entire function and that the Fatou set F(f)≠∅. Set and where the supremum supU is taken over all components of F(f). If B1(f)<∞ or B2(f)<∞, then we say F(f) is strongly uniformly bounded or uniformly bounded respectively. We show that, under some conditions, F(f) is (strongly) uniformly bounded.