Many problems in combinatorial linear algebra require upper bounds on the number of solutions to an underdetermined system of linear equations $Ax = b$, where the coordinates of the vector x are restricted to take values in some small subset (e.g. $\{\pm 1\}$) of the underlying field. The classical ways of bounding this quantity are to use either a rank bound observation due to Odlyzko or a vector anti-concentration inequality due to Halász. The former gives a stronger conclusion except when the number of equations is significantly smaller than the number of variables; even in such situations, the hypotheses of Halász’s inequality are quite hard to verify in practice. In this paper, using a novel approach to the anti-concentration problem for vector sums, we obtain new Halász-type inequalities that beat the Odlyzko bound even in settings where the number of equations is comparable to the number of variables. In addition to being stronger, our inequalities have hypotheses that are considerably easier to verify. We present two applications of our inequalities to combinatorial (random) matrix theory: (i) we obtain the first non-trivial upper bound on the number of $n\times n$ Hadamard matrices and (ii) we improve a recent bound of Deneanu and Vu on the probability of normality of a random $\{\pm 1\}$ matrix.

We prove that a hyperbolic group admits a strongly aperiodic subshift of finite type if and only if it has at most one end.

Given a hereditary property of graphs $\mathcal{H}$ and a $p\in [0,1]$, the edit distance function $\textrm{ed}_{\mathcal{H}}(p)$ is asymptotically the maximum proportion of edge additions plus edge deletions applied to a graph of edge density p sufficient to ensure that the resulting graph satisfies $\mathcal{H}$. The edit distance function is directly related to other well-studied quantities such as the speed function for $\mathcal{H}$ and the $\mathcal{H}$-chromatic number of a random graph.

Let $\mathcal{H}$ be the property of forbidding an Erdős–Rényi random graph $F\sim \mathbb{G}(n_0,p_0)$, and let $\varphi$ represent the golden ratio. In this paper, we show that if $p_0\in [1-1/\varphi,1/\varphi]$, then a.a.s. as $n_0\to\infty$,

\begin{align*}{\textrm{ed}}_{\mathcal{H}}(p) = (1+o(1))\,\frac{2\log n_0}{n_0}\cdot\min\left\{\frac{p}{-\log(1-p_0)},\frac{1-p}{-\log p_0}\right\}.\end{align*}

$p\in [1/3,2/3]$

$p_0\in (0,1)$

A primary tool in the proof is the categorization of p-core coloured regularity graphs in the range $p\in[1-1/\varphi,1/\varphi]$. Such coloured regularity graphs must have the property that the non-grey edges form vertex-disjoint cliques.

We reduce the upper bound for the bond percolation threshold of the cubic lattice from 0.447 792 to 0.347 297. The bound is obtained by a growth process approach which views the open cluster of a bond percolation model as a dynamic process. A three-dimensional dynamic process on the cubic lattice is constructed and then projected onto a carefully chosen plane to obtain a two-dimensional dynamic process on a triangular lattice. We compare the bond percolation models on the cubic lattice and their projections, and demonstrate that the bond percolation threshold of the cubic lattice is no greater than that of the triangular lattice. Applying the approach to the body-centered cubic lattice yields an upper bound of 0.292 893 for its bond percolation threshold.

A bipartite graph $H = \left (V_1, V_2; E \right )$ with $\lvert V_1\rvert + \lvert V_2\rvert = n$ is semilinear if $V_i \subseteq \mathbb {R}^{d_i}$ for some $d_i$ and the edge relation E consists of the pairs of points $(x_1, x_2) \in V_1 \times V_2$ satisfying a fixed Boolean combination of s linear equalities and inequalities in $d_1 + d_2$ variables for some s. We show that for a fixed k, the number of edges in a $K_{k,k}$-free semilinear H is almost linear in n, namely $\lvert E\rvert = O_{s,k,\varepsilon }\left (n^{1+\varepsilon }\right )$ for any $\varepsilon> 0$; and more generally, $\lvert E\rvert = O_{s,k,r,\varepsilon }\left (n^{r-1 + \varepsilon }\right )$ for a $K_{k, \dotsc ,k}$-free semilinear r-partite r-uniform hypergraph.

As an application, we obtain the following incidence bound: given $n_1$ points and $n_2$ open boxes with axis-parallel sides in $\mathbb {R}^d$ such that their incidence graph is $K_{k,k}$-free, there can be at most $O_{k,\varepsilon }\left (n^{1+\varepsilon }\right )$ incidences. The same bound holds if instead of boxes, one takes polytopes cut out by the translates of an arbitrary fixed finite set of half-spaces.

We also obtain matching upper and (superlinear) lower bounds in the case of dyadic boxes on the plane, and point out some connections to the model-theoretic trichotomy in o-minimal structures (showing that the failure of an almost-linear bound for some definable graph allows one to recover the field operations from that graph in a definable manner).

Fix a poset Q on $\{x_1,\ldots ,x_n\}$. A Q-Borel monomial ideal $I \subseteq \mathbb {K}[x_1,\ldots ,x_n]$ is a monomial ideal whose monomials are closed under the Borel-like moves induced by Q. A monomial ideal I is a principal Q-Borel ideal, denoted $I=Q(m)$, if there is a monomial m such that all the minimal generators of I can be obtained via Q-Borel moves from m. In this paper we study powers of principal Q-Borel ideals. Among our results, we show that all powers of $Q(m)$ agree with their symbolic powers, and that the ideal $Q(m)$ satisfies the persistence property for associated primes. We also compute the analytic spread of $Q(m)$ in terms of the poset Q.

It is well known that the height profile of a critical conditioned Galton–Watson tree with finite offspring variance converges, after a suitable normalisation, to the local time of a standard Brownian excursion. In this work, we study the distance profile, defined as the profile of all distances between pairs of vertices. We show that after a proper rescaling the distance profile converges to a continuous random function that can be described as the density of distances between random points in the Brownian continuum random tree. We show that this limiting function a.s. is Hölder continuous of any order $\alpha<1$, and that it is a.e. differentiable. We note that it cannot be differentiable at 0, but leave as open questions whether it is Lipschitz, and whether it is continuously differentiable on the half-line $(0,\infty)$. The distance profile is naturally defined also for unrooted trees contrary to the height profile that is designed for rooted trees. This is used in our proof, and we prove the corresponding convergence result for the distance profile of random unrooted simply generated trees. As a minor purpose of the present work, we also formalize the notion of unrooted simply generated trees and include some simple results relating them to rooted simply generated trees, which might be of independent interest.

For two metric spaces $\mathbb X$ and $\mathcal Y$ the chromatic number $\chi ({{\mathbb X}};{{\mathcal{Y}}})$ of $\mathbb X$ with forbidden $\mathcal Y$ is the smallest k such that there is a colouring of the points of $\mathbb X$ with k colors that contains no monochromatic copy of $\mathcal Y$. In this article, we show that for each finite metric space $\mathcal {M}$ that contains at least two points the value $\chi \left ({{\mathbb R}}^n_\infty; \mathcal M \right )$ grows exponentially with n. We also provide explicit lower and upper bounds for some special $\mathcal M$.

A graph is edge-primitive if its automorphism group acts primitively on the edge set, and $2$-arc-transitive if its automorphism group acts transitively on the set of $2$-arcs. In this paper, we present a classification for those edge-primitive graphs that are $2$-arc-transitive and have soluble edge-stabilizers.

In a classical chess round-robin tournament, each of $n$ players wins, draws, or loses a game against each of the other $n-1$ players. A win rewards a player with 1 points, a draw with 1/2 point, and a loss with 0 points. We are interested in the distribution of the scores associated with ranks of $n$ players after ${{n \choose 2}}$ games, that is, the distribution of the maximal score, second maximum, and so on. The exact distribution for a general $n$ seems impossible to obtain; we obtain a limit distribution.

A long-standing conjecture of Erdős and Simonovits asserts that for every rational number $r\in (1,2)$ there exists a bipartite graph H such that $\mathrm{ex}(n,H)=\Theta(n^r)$. So far this conjecture is known to be true only for rationals of form $1+1/k$ and $2-1/k$, for integers $k\geq 2$. In this paper, we add a new form of rationals for which the conjecture is true: $2-2/(2k+1)$, for $k\geq 2$. This in turn also gives an affirmative answer to a question of Pinchasi and Sharir on cube-like graphs. Recently, a version of Erdős and Simonovits$^{\prime}$s conjecture, where one replaces a single graph by a finite family, was confirmed by Bukh and Conlon. They proposed a construction of bipartite graphs which should satisfy Erdős and Simonovits$^{\prime}$s conjecture. Our result can also be viewed as a first step towards verifying Bukh and Conlon$^{\prime}$s conjecture. We also prove an upper bound on the Turán number of theta graphs in an asymmetric setting and employ this result to obtain another new rational exponent for Turán exponents: $r=7/5$.

For a finite-dimensional Lie algebra $\mathfrak {L}$ over $\mathbb {C}$ with a fixed Levi decomposition $\mathfrak {L} = \mathfrak {g} \ltimes \mathfrak {r}$, where $\mathfrak {g}$ is semisimple, we investigate $\mathfrak {L}$-modules which decompose, as $\mathfrak {g}$-modules, into a direct sum of simple finite-dimensional $\mathfrak {g}$-modules with finite multiplicities. We call such modules $\mathfrak {g}$-Harish-Chandra modules. We give a complete classification of simple $\mathfrak {g}$-Harish-Chandra modules for the Takiff Lie algebra associated to $\mathfrak {g} = \mathfrak {sl}_2$, and for the Schrödinger Lie algebra, and obtain some partial results in other cases. An adapted version of Enright’s and Arkhipov’s completion functors plays a crucial role in our arguments. Moreover, we calculate the first extension groups of infinite-dimensional simple $\mathfrak {g}$-Harish-Chandra modules and their annihilators in the universal enveloping algebra, for the Takiff $\mathfrak {sl}_2$ and the Schrödinger Lie algebra. In the general case, we give a sufficient condition for the existence of infinite-dimensional simple $\mathfrak {g}$-Harish-Chandra modules.

A set S of permutations is forcing if for any sequence $\{\Pi_i\}_{i \in \mathbb{N}}$ of permutations where the density $d(\pi,\Pi_i)$ converges to $\frac{1}{|\pi|!}$ for every permutation $\pi \in S$, it holds that $\{\Pi_i\}_{i \in \mathbb{N}}$ is quasirandom. Graham asked whether there exists an integer k such that the set of all permutations of order k is forcing; this has been shown to be true for any $k\ge 4$. In particular, the set of all 24 permutations of order 4 is forcing. We provide the first non-trivial lower bound on the size of a forcing set of permutations: every forcing set of permutations (with arbitrary orders) contains at least four permutations.

For a Weyl group W of rank r, the W-Catalan number is the number of antichains of the poset of positive roots, and the W-Narayana numbers refine the W-Catalan number by keeping track of the cardinalities of these antichains. The W-Narayana numbers are symmetric – that is, the number of antichains of cardinality k is the same as the number of cardinality $r-k$. However, this symmetry is far from obvious. Panyushev posed the problem of defining an involution on root poset antichains that exhibits the symmetry of the W-Narayana numbers.

Rowmotion and rowvacuation are two related operators, defined as compositions of toggles, that give a dihedral action on the set of antichains of any ranked poset. Rowmotion acting on root posets has been the subject of a significant amount of research in the recent past. We prove that for the root posets of classical types, rowvacuation is Panyushev’s desired involution.

We prove an analogue of Alon’s spectral gap conjecture for random bipartite, biregular graphs. We use the Ihara–Bass formula to connect the non-backtracking spectrum to that of the adjacency matrix, employing the moment method to show there exists a spectral gap for the non-backtracking matrix. A by-product of our main theorem is that random rectangular zero-one matrices with fixed row and column sums are full rank with high probability. Finally, we illustrate applications to community detection, coding theory, and deterministic matrix completion.

We present infinite analogues of our splinter lemma for constructing nested sets of separations. From these we derive several tree-of-tangles-type theorems for infinite graphs and infinite abstract separation systems.

We study normal reflection subgroups of complex reflection groups. Our approach leads to a refinement of a theorem of Orlik and Solomon to the effect that the generating function for fixed-space dimension over a reflection group is a product of linear factors involving generalised exponents. Our refinement gives a uniform proof and generalisation of a recent theorem of the second author.

We develop a theory of graph algebras over general fields. This is modelled after the theory developed by Freedman et al. (2007, J. Amer. Math. Soc. 20 37–51) for connection matrices, in the study of graph homomorphism functions over real edge weight and positive vertex weight. We introduce connection tensors for graph properties. This notion naturally generalizes the concept of connection matrices. It is shown that counting perfect matchings, and a host of other graph properties naturally defined as Holant problems (edge models), cannot be expressed by graph homomorphism functions with both complex vertex and edge weights (or even from more general fields). Our necessary and sufficient condition in terms of connection tensors is a simple exponential rank bound. It shows that positive semidefiniteness is not needed in the more general setting.

Let $p=3n+1$ be a prime with $n\in \mathbb {N}=\{0,1,2,\ldots \}$ and let $g\in \mathbb {Z}$ be a primitive root modulo p. Let $0<a_1<\cdots <a_n<p$ be all the cubic residues modulo p in the interval $(0,p)$. Then clearly the sequence $a_1 \bmod p,\, a_2 \bmod p,\ldots , a_n \bmod p$ is a permutation of the sequence $g^3 \bmod p,\,g^6 \bmod p,\ldots , g^{3n} \bmod p$. We determine the sign of this permutation.

We show that fractal percolation sets in $\mathbb{R}^{d}$ almost surely intersect every hyperplane absolutely winning (HAW) set with full Hausdorff dimension. In particular, if $E\subset\mathbb{R}^{d}$ is a realisation of a fractal percolation process, then almost surely (conditioned on $E\neq\emptyset$), for every countable collection $\left(f_{i}\right)_{i\in\mathbb{N}}$ of $C^{1}$ diffeomorphisms of $\mathbb{R}^{d}$, $\dim_{H}\left(E\cap\left(\bigcap_{i\in\mathbb{N}}f_{i}\left(\text{BA}_{d}\right)\right)\right)=\dim_{H}\left(E\right)$, where $\text{BA}_{d}$ is the set of badly approximable vectors in $\mathbb{R}^{d}$. We show this by proving that E almost surely contains hyperplane diffuse subsets which are Ahlfors-regular with dimensions arbitrarily close to $\dim_{H}\left(E\right)$.

We achieve this by analysing Galton–Watson trees and showing that they almost surely contain appropriate subtrees whose projections to $\mathbb{R}^{d}$ yield the aforementioned subsets of E. This method allows us to obtain a more general result by projecting the Galton–Watson trees against any similarity IFS whose attractor is not contained in a single affine hyperplane. Thus our general result relates to a broader class of random fractals than fractal percolation.