The Mordell Conjecture

The Mordell conjecture (Faltings's theorem) is one of the most important achievements in Diophantine geometry, stating that an algebraic curve of genus at least two has only finitely many rational points. This book provides a self-contained and detailed proof of the Mordell conjecture following the papers of Bombieri and Vojta. Also acting as a concise introduction to Diophantine geometry, the text starts from basics of algebraic number theory, touches on several important theorems and techniques (including the theory of heights, the Mordell–Weil theorem, Siegel's lemma and Roth's lemma) from Diophantine geometry, and culminates in the proof of the Mordell conjecture. Based on the authors' own teaching experience, it will be of great value to advanced undergraduate and graduate students in algebraic geometry and number theory, as well as researchers interested in Diophantine geometry as a whole.

Quaternionic Grassmannians and Borel classes in algebraic geometry

The quaternionic Grassmannian H Gr ⁡ ( r , n ) \operatorname {H Gr}(r,n) is the affine open subscheme of the usual Grassmannian parametrizing those 2 r 2r -dimensional subspaces of a 2 n 2n -dimensional symplectic vector space on which the symplectic form is nondegenerate. In particular, we have HP n = H Gr ⁡ ( 1 , n + 1 ) \operatorname {HP}^n = \operatorname {H Gr}(1,n+1) . For a symplectically oriented cohomology theory A A , including oriented theories but also the Hermitian K \operatorname {K} -theory, Witt groups, and algebraic symplectic cobordism, we have A ( HP n ) = A ( pt ) [ p ] / ( p n + 1 ) A(\operatorname {HP}^n) = A(\operatorname {pt})[p]/(p^{n+1}) . Borel classes for symplectic bundles are introduced in the paper. They satisfy the splitting principle and the Cartan sum formula, and they are used to calculate the cohomology of quaternionic Grassmannians. In a symplectically oriented theory the Thom classes of rank 2 2 symplectic bundles determine Thom and Borel classes for all symplectic bundles, and the symplectic Thom classes can be recovered from the Borel classes. The cell structure of the H Gr ⁡ ( r , n ) \operatorname {H Gr}(r,n) exists in cohomology, but it is difficult to see more than part of it geometrically. An exception is HP n \operatorname {HP}^n where the cell of codimension 2 i 2i is a quasi-affine quotient of A 4 n − 2 i + 1 \mathbb {A}^{4n-2i+1} by a nonlinear action of G a \mathbb {G}_a .

A finite characterization of perfect equilibria

Govindan and Klumpp [7] provided a characterization of perfect equilibria using Lexicographic Probability Systems (LPSs). Their characterization was essentially finite in that they showed that there exists a finite bound on the number of levels in the LPS, but they did not compute it explicitly. In this note, we draw on two recent developments in Real Algebraic Geometry to obtain a formula for this bound.

The Non-Tightness of a Convex Relaxation to Rotation Recovery

We study the Perspective-n-Point (PNP) problem, which is fundamental in 3D vision, for the recovery of camera translation and rotation. A common solution applies polynomial sum-of-squares (SOS) relaxation techniques via semidefinite programming. Our main result is that the polynomials which should be optimized can be non-negative but not SOS, hence the resulting convex relaxation is not tight; specifically, we present an example of real-life configurations for which the convex relaxation in the Lasserre Hierarchy fails, in both the second and third levels. In addition to the theoretical contribution, the conclusion for practitioners is that this commonly-used approach can fail; our experiments suggest that using higher levels of the Lasserre Hierarchy reduces the probability of failure. The methods we use are mostly drawn from the area of polynomial optimization and convex relaxation; we also use some results from real algebraic geometry, as well as Matlab optimization packages for PNP.