We discuss a variant, named ‘Rattle’, of the product replacement algorithm. Rattle is a Markov chain, that returns a random element of a black box group. The limiting distribution of the element returned is the uniform distribution. We prove that, if the generating sequence is long enough, the probability distribution of the element returned converges unexpectedly quickly to the uniform distribution.

In this paper, we compute the LS-category and equivariant LS-category of a small cover and its real moment angle manifold. We calculate a tight lower bound for the topological complexity of many small covers over a product of simplices. Then we compute symmetric topological complexity of several small covers over a product of simplices. We calculate the LS one-category of real Bott manifolds and infinitely many small covers.

We prove existence and unicity of slope-stable vector bundles on a general polarized hyperkähler (HK) variety of type $K3^{[n]}$ with certain discrete invariants, provided the rank and the first two Chern classes of the vector bundle satisfy certain equalities. The latter hypotheses at first glance appear to be quite restrictive, but, in fact, we might have listed almost all slope-stable rigid projectively hyperholomorphic vector bundles on polarized HK varieties of type $K3^{[n]}$ with $20$ moduli.

The present paper deals with the non-real eigenvalues for singular indefinite Sturm–Liouville problems. The lower bounds on non-real eigenvalues for this singular problem associated with a special separated boundary condition are obtained.

The Ceresa cycle is an algebraic cycle attached to a smooth algebraic curve with a marked point, which is trivial when the curve is hyperelliptic with a marked Weierstrass point. The image of the Ceresa cycle under a certain cycle class map provides a class in étale cohomology called the Ceresa class. Describing the Ceresa class explicitly for nonhyperelliptic curves is in general not easy. We present a ‘combinatorialization’ of this problem, explaining how to define a Ceresa class for a tropical algebraic curve and also for a topological surface endowed with a multiset of commuting Dehn twists (where it is related to the Morita cocycle on the mapping class group). We explain how these are related to the Ceresa class of a smooth algebraic curve over $\mathbb {C}(\!(t)\!)$ and show that the Ceresa class in each of these settings is torsion.

Graph products of cyclic groups and Coxeter groups are two families of groups that are defined by labelled graphs. The family of Dyer groups contains these both families and gives us a framework to study these groups in a unified way. This paper focuses on the spherical growth series of a Dyer group D with respect to the standard generating set. We give a recursive formula for the spherical growth series of D in terms of the spherical growth series of standard parabolic subgroups. As an application we obtain the rationality of the spherical growth series of a Dyer group. Furthermore, we show that the spherical growth series of D is closely related to the Euler characteristic of D.

Let $\Omega \subset \mathbb {R}^N$ ($N\geq 3$) be a $C^2$ bounded domain and $\Sigma \subset \partial \Omega$ be a $C^2$ compact submanifold without boundary, of dimension $k$, $0\leq k \leq N-1$. We assume that $\Sigma = \{0\}$ if $k = 0$ and $\Sigma =\partial \Omega$ if $k=N-1$. Let $d_{\Sigma }(x)=\mathrm {dist}\,(x,\Sigma )$ and $L_\mu = \Delta + \mu \,d_{\Sigma }^{-2}$, where $\mu \in {\mathbb {R}}$. We study boundary value problems ($P_\pm$) $-{L_\mu} u \pm |u|^{p-1}u = 0$ in $\Omega$ and $\mathrm {tr}_{\mu,\Sigma}(u)=\nu$ on $\partial \Omega$, where $p>1$, $\nu$ is a given measure on $\partial \Omega$ and $\mathrm {tr}_{\mu,\Sigma}(u)$ denotes the boundary trace of $u$ associated to $L_\mu$. Different critical exponents for the existence of a solution to ($P_\pm$) appear according to concentration of $\nu$. The solvability for problem ($P_+$) was proved in [3, 29] in subcritical ranges for $p$, namely for $p$ smaller than one of the critical exponents. In this paper, assuming the positivity of the first eigenvalue of $-L_\mu$, we provide conditions on $\nu$ expressed in terms of capacities for the existence of a (unique) solution to ($P_+$) in supercritical ranges for $p$, i.e. for $p$ equal or bigger than one of the critical exponents. We also establish various equivalent criteria for the existence of a solution to ($P_-$) under a smallness assumption on $\nu$.

We consider bond percolation on high-dimensional product graphs $G=\square _{i=1}^tG^{(i)}$, where $\square$ denotes the Cartesian product. We call the $G^{(i)}$ the base graphs and the product graph $G$ the host graph. Very recently, Lichev (J. Graph Theory, 99(4):651–670, 2022) showed that, under a mild requirement on the isoperimetric properties of the base graphs, the component structure of the percolated graph $G_p$ undergoes a phase transition when $p$ is around $\frac{1}{d}$, where $d$ is the average degree of the host graph.

In the supercritical regime, we strengthen Lichev’s result by showing that the giant component is in fact unique, with all other components of order $o(|G|)$, and determining the sharp asymptotic order of the giant. Furthermore, we answer two questions posed by Lichev (J. Graph Theory, 99(4):651–670, 2022): firstly, we provide a construction showing that the requirement of bounded degree is necessary for the likely emergence of a linear order component; secondly, we show that the isoperimetric requirement on the base graphs can be, in fact, super-exponentially small in the dimension. Finally, in the subcritical regime, we give an example showing that in the case of irregular high-dimensional product graphs, there can be a polynomially large component with high probability, very much unlike the quantitative behaviour seen in the Erdős-Rényi random graph and in the percolated hypercube, and in fact in any regular high-dimensional product graphs, as shown by the authors in a companion paper (Percolation on high-dimensional product graphs. arXiv:2209.03722, 2022).

We show that continuous group homomorphisms between unitary groups of unital C*-algebras induce maps between spaces of continuous real-valued affine functions on the trace simplices. Under certain $K$-theoretic regularity conditions, these maps can be seen to commute with the pairing between $K_0$ and traces. If the homomorphism is contractive and sends the unit circle to the unit circle, the map between spaces of continuous real-valued affine functions can further be shown to be unital and positive (up to a minus sign).

We give a new proof of rationality of stable commutator length (scl) of certain elements in surface groups: those represented by curves that do not fill the surface. Such elements always admit extremal surfaces for scl. These results also hold more generally for non-filling $1$–chains.

In Chen and Liang previous work, a model, together with its well-posedness, was established for credit rating migrations with different upgrade and downgrade thresholds (i.e. a buffer zone, also called dead band in engineering). When positive dividends are introduced, the model in Chen and Liang (SIAM Financ. Math. 12, 941–966, 2021) may not be well-posed. Here, in this paper, a new model is proposed to include the realistic nonzero dividend scenarios. The key feature of the new model is that partial differential equations in Chen and Liang (SIAM Financ. Math. 12, 941–966, 2021) are replaced by variational inequalities, thereby creating a new free boundary, besides the original upgrading and downgrading free boundaries. Well-posedness of the new model, together with a few financially meaningful properties, is established. In particular, it is shown that when time to debt paying deadline is long enough, the underlying dividend paying company is always in high grade rating, that is, only when time to debt paying deadline is within a certain range, there can be seen the phenomenon of credit rating migration.

Quaternionic automorphic representations are one attempt to generalize to other groups the special place holomorphic modular forms have among automorphic representations of $\mathrm {GL}_2$. Here, we use ‘hyperendoscopy’ techniques to develop a general trace formula and understand them on an arbitrary group. Then we specialize this general formula to study quaternionic automorphic representations on the exceptional group $G_2$, eventually getting an analog of the Eichler–Selberg trace formula for classical modular forms. We finally use this together with some techniques of Chenevier, Renard and Taïbi to compute dimensions of spaces of level-$1$ quaternionic representations. On the way, we prove a Jacquet–Langlands-style result describing them in terms of classical modular forms and automorphic representations on the compact-at-infinity form $G_2^c$.

The main technical difficulty is that the quaternionic discrete series that quaternionic automorphic representations are defined in terms of do not satisfy a condition of being ‘regular’. A real representation theory argument shows that regularity miraculously does not matter for specifically the case of quaternionic discrete series.

We hope that the techniques and shortcuts highlighted in this project are of interest in other computations about discrete-at-infinity automorphic representations on arbitrary reductive groups instead of just classical ones.

We prove the existence of $\mathrm {GSpin}_{2n}$-valued Galois representations corresponding to cohomological cuspidal automorphic representations of certain quasi-split forms of ${\mathrm {GSO}}_{2n}$ under the local hypotheses that there is a Steinberg component and that the archimedean parameters are regular for the standard representation. This is based on the cohomology of Shimura varieties of abelian type, of type $D^{\mathbb {H}}$, arising from forms of ${\mathrm {GSO}}_{2n}$. As an application, under similar hypotheses, we compute automorphic multiplicities, prove meromorphic continuation of (half) spin L-functions and improve on the construction of ${\mathrm {SO}}_{2n}$-valued Galois representations by removing the outer automorphism ambiguity.

We compute $ku^*\left(K\!\left({\mathbb{Z}}_p,2\right)\right)$ and $ku_*\left(K\!\left({\mathbb{Z}}_p,2\right)\right)$, the connective $KU$-cohomology and connective $KU$-homology groups of the mod-$p$ Eilenberg–MacLane space $K\!\left({\mathbb{Z}}_p,2\right)$, using the Adams spectral sequence. We obtain a striking interaction between $h_0$-extensions and exotic extensions. The mod-$p$ connective $KU$-cohomology groups, computed elsewhere, are needed in order to establish higher differentials and exotic extensions in the integral groups.

In this work, we carry out an analytical and numerical investigation of travelling waves representing arced vegetation patterns on sloped terrains. These patterns are reported to appear also in ecosystems which are not water deprived; therefore, we study the hypothesis that their appearance is due to plant–soil negative feedback, namely due to biomass-(auto)toxicity interactions.

To this aim, we introduce a reaction-diffusion-advection model describing the dynamics of vegetation biomass and toxicity which includes the effect of sloped terrains on the spatial distribution of these variables. Our analytical investigation shows the absence of Turing patterns, whereas travelling waves (moving uphill in the slope direction) emerge. Investigating the corresponding dispersion relation, we provide an analytic expression for the asymptotic speed of the wave. Numerical simulations not only just confirm this analytical quantity but also reveal the impact of toxicity on the structure of the emerging travelling pattern.

Our analysis represents a further step in understanding the mechanisms behind relevant plants‘ spatial distributions observed in real life. In particular, since vegetation patterns (both stationary and transient) are known to play a crucial role in determining the underlying ecosystems’ resilience, the framework presented here allows us to better understand the emergence of such structures to a larger variety of ecological scenarios and hence improve the relative strategies to ensure the ecosystems’ resilience.

We show that many graphs with bounded treewidth can be described as subgraphs of the strong product of a graph with smaller treewidth and a bounded-size complete graph. To this end, define the underlying treewidth of a graph class $\mathcal{G}$ to be the minimum non-negative integer $c$ such that, for some function $f$, for every graph $G \in \mathcal{G}$ there is a graph $H$ with $\textrm{tw}(H) \leqslant c$ such that $G$ is isomorphic to a subgraph of $H \boxtimes K_{f(\textrm{tw}(G))}$. We introduce disjointed coverings of graphs and show they determine the underlying treewidth of any graph class. Using this result, we prove that the class of planar graphs has underlying treewidth $3$; the class of $K_{s,t}$-minor-free graphs has underlying treewidth $s$ (for $t \geqslant \max \{s,3\}$); and the class of $K_t$-minor-free graphs has underlying treewidth $t-2$. In general, we prove that a monotone class has bounded underlying treewidth if and only if it excludes some fixed topological minor. We also study the underlying treewidth of graph classes defined by an excluded subgraph or excluded induced subgraph. We show that the class of graphs with no $H$ subgraph has bounded underlying treewidth if and only if every component of $H$ is a subdivided star, and that the class of graphs with no induced $H$ subgraph has bounded underlying treewidth if and only if every component of $H$ is a star.