When does the amount of torsion in the homology of an arithmetic group grow exponentially with the covolume? We give many examples where this is the case, and conjecture precise conditions.

Given a quasi-hereditary algebra , we present conditions which guarantee that the algebra obtained by grading by its radical filtration is Koszul and at the same time inherits the quasi-hereditary property and other good Lie-theoretic properties that might possess. The method involves working with a pair consisting of a quasi-hereditary algebra and a (positively) graded subalgebra . The algebra arises as a quotient of by a defining ideal of . Along the way, we also show that the standard (Weyl) modules for have a structure as graded modules for . These results are applied to obtain new information about the finite dimensional algebras (e.g., the -Schur algebras) which arise as quotients of quantum enveloping algebras. Further applications, perhaps the most penetrating, yield results for the finite dimensional algebras associated with semisimple algebraic groups in positive characteristic . These results require, at least at present, considerable restrictions on the size of .

The Bernstein approximation problem is to determine whether or not the space of all polynomials is dense in a given weighted ${C}_{0} $-space on the real line. A theorem of de Branges characterizes non-density by existence of an entire function of Krein class being related with the weight in a certain way. An analogous result holds true for weighted sup-norm approximation by entire functions of exponential type at most $\tau $ and bounded on the real axis ($\tau \gt 0$ fixed).

We consider approximation in weighted ${C}_{0} $-spaces by functions belonging to a prescribed subspace of entire functions which is solely assumed to be invariant under division of zeros and passing from $F(z)$ to $ \overline{F( \overline{z} )} $, and establish the precise analogue of de Branges’ theorem. For the proof we follow the lines of de Branges’ original proof, and employ some results of Pitt.

We show improved local energy decay for the wave equation on asymptotically Euclidean manifolds in odd dimensions in the short range case. The precise decay rate depends on the decay of the metric towards the Euclidean metric. We also give estimates of powers of the resolvent of the wave propagator between weighted spaces.

We describe a probability distribution on isomorphism classes of principally quasi-polarized $p$-divisible groups over a finite field $k$ of characteristic $p$ which can reasonably be thought of as a ‘uniform distribution’, and we compute the distribution of various statistics ($p$-corank, $a$-number, etc.) of $p$-divisible groups drawn from this distribution. It is then natural to ask to what extent the $p$-divisible groups attached to a randomly chosen hyperelliptic curve (respectively, curve; respectively, abelian variety) over $k$ are uniformly distributed in this sense. This heuristic is analogous to conjectures of Cohen–Lenstra type for $\text{char~} k\not = p$, in which case the random $p$-divisible group is defined by a random matrix recording the action of Frobenius. Extensive numerical investigation reveals some cases of agreement with the heuristic and some interesting discrepancies. For example, plane curves over ${\mathbf{F} }_{3} $ appear substantially less likely to be ordinary than hyperelliptic curves over ${\mathbf{F} }_{3} $.