An elementary proof of the Eichler–Selberg trace formula

We give a purely algebraic proof of the trace formula for Hecke operators on modular forms for the full modular group{\mathrm{SL}_{2}(\mathbb{Z})}, using the action of Hecke operators on the space of period polynomials. This approach, which can also be applied for congruence subgroups, is more elementary than the classical ones using kernel functions, and avoids the analytic difficulties inherent in the latter (especially in weight two). Our main result is an algebraic property of a special Hecke element that involves neither period polynomials nor modular forms, yet immediately implies both the trace formula and the classical Kronecker–Hurwitz class number relation. This key property can be seen as providing a bridge between the conjugacy classes and the right cosets contained in a given double coset of the modular group.

Parabolic double cosets in Coxeter groups

International audience Parabolic subgroups WI of Coxeter systems (W,S) and their ordinary and double cosets W/WI and WI\W/WJ appear in many contexts in combinatorics and Lie theory, including the geometry and topology of generalized flag varieties and the symmetry groups of regular polytopes. The set of ordinary cosets wWI , for I ⊆ S, forms the Coxeter complex of W , and is well-studied. In this extended abstract, we look at a less studied object: the set of all double cosets WIwWJ for I,J ⊆ S. Each double coset can be presented by many different triples (I, w, J). We describe what we call the lex-minimal presentation and prove that there exists a unique such choice for each double coset. Lex-minimal presentations can be enumerated via a finite automaton depending on the Coxeter graph for (W, S). In particular, we present a formula for the number of parabolic double cosets with a fixed minimal element when W is the symmetric group Sn. In that case, parabolic subgroups are also known as Young subgroups. Our formula is almost always linear time computable in n, and the formula can be generalized to any Coxeter group.

Minimal Newton Strata in Iwahori Double Cosets

The set of Newton strata in a given Iwahori double coset in the loop group of a reductive group $G$ is indexed by a finite subset of the set $B(G)$ of Frobenius-conjugacy classes. For unramified $G$, we show that it has a unique minimal element and determine this element. Under a regularity assumption, we also compute the dimension of the corresponding Newton stratum. We derive corresponding results for affine Deligne–Lusztig varieties.

Quantizing Euclidean Motions via Double-Coset Decomposition

Concepts from mathematical crystallography and group theory are used here to quantize the group of rigid-body motions, resulting in a “motion alphabet” with which robot motion primitives are expressed. From these primitives it is possible to develop a dictionary of physical actions. Equipped with an alphabet of the sort developed here, intelligent actions of robots in the world can be approximated with finite sequences of characters, thereby forming the foundation of a language in which robot motion is articulated. In particular, we use the discrete handedness-preserving symmetries of macromolecular crystals (known in mathematical crystallography as Sohncke space groups) to form a coarse discretization of the space SE(3) of rigid-body motions. This discretization is made finer by subdividing using the concept of double-coset decomposition. More specifically, a very efficient, equivolumetric quantization of spatial motion can be defined using the group-theoretic concept of a double-coset decomposition of the form Γ\SE(3)/Δ, where Γ is a Sohncke space group and Δ is a finite group of rotational symmetries such as those of the icosahedron. The resulting discrete alphabet is based on a very uniform sampling of SE(3) and is a tool for describing the continuous trajectories of robots and humans. An efficient coarse-to-fine search algorithm is presented to round off any motion sampled from the continuous group of motions to the nearest element of our alphabet. It is shown that our alphabet and this efficient rounding algorithm can be used as a geometric data structure to accelerate the performance of other sampling schemes designed for desirable dispersion or discrepancy properties. Moreover, the general “signals to symbols” problem in artificial intelligence is cast in this framework for robots moving continuously in the world.

A Two-Sided Analogue of the Coxeter Complex

For any Coxeter system $(W,S)$ of rank $n$, we study an abstract boolean complex (simplicial poset) of dimension $2n-1$ that contains the Coxeter complex as a relative subcomplex. For finite $W$, this complex is first described in work of Hultman. Faces are indexed by triples $(I,w,J)$, where $I$ and $J$ are subsets of the set $S$ of simple generators, and $w$ is a minimal length representative for the parabolic double coset $W_I w W_J$. There is exactly one maximal face for each element of the group $W$. The complex is shellable and thin, which implies the complex is a sphere for the finite Coxeter groups. In this case, a natural refinement of the $h$-polynomial is given by the "two-sided" $W$-Eulerian polynomial, i.e., the generating function for the joint distribution of left and right descents in $W$.

Infinite symmetric group, pseudomanifolds, and combinatorial cobordism-like structures

We consider a category [Formula: see text] whose morphisms are [Formula: see text]-dimensional pseudomanifolds equipped with certain additional structures (coloring and labeling of some cells), multiplication of morphisms is similar to a concatenation of cobordisms. On the other hand, we consider the product [Formula: see text] of [Formula: see text] copies of infinite symmetric group. We construct a correspondence between the sets of morphisms of [Formula: see text] and double coset spaces of [Formula: see text] with respect to certain subgroups. We show that unitary representations of [Formula: see text] produce functors from the category of [Formula: see text] to the category of Hilbert spaces and bounded linear operators.

CONTINUOUS ASSOCIATION SCHEMES AND HYPERGROUPS

Classical finite association schemes lead to finite-dimensional algebras which are generated by finitely many stochastic matrices. Moreover, there exist associated finite hypergroups. The notion of classical discrete association schemes can be easily extended to the possibly infinite case. Moreover, this notion can be relaxed slightly by using suitably deformed families of stochastic matrices by skipping the integrality conditions. This leads to a larger class of examples which are again associated with discrete hypergroups. In this paper we propose a topological generalization of association schemes by using a locally compact basis space $X$ and a family of Markov-kernels on $X$ indexed by some locally compact space $D$ where the supports of the associated probability measures satisfy some partition property. These objects, called continuous association schemes, will be related to hypergroup structures on $D$ . We study some basic results for this notion and present several classes of examples. It turns out that, for a given commutative hypergroup, the existence of a related continuous association scheme implies that the hypergroup has many features of a double coset hypergroup. We, in particular, show that commutative hypergroups, which are associated with commutative continuous association schemes, carry dual positive product formulas for the characters. On the other hand, we prove some rigidity results in particular in the compact case which say that for given spaces $X,D$ there are only a few continuous association schemes.

Parabolic Double Cosets in Coxeter Groups

Parabolic subgroups $W_I$ of Coxeter systems $(W,S)$, as well as their ordinary and double quotients $W / W_I$ and $W_I \backslash W / W_J$, appear in many contexts in combinatorics and Lie theory, including the geometry and topology of generalized flag varieties and the symmetry groups of regular polytopes. The set of ordinary cosets $w W_I$, for $I \subseteq S$, forms the Coxeter complex of $W$, and is well-studied. In this article we look at a less studied object: the set of all double cosets $W_I w W_J$ for $I, J \subseteq S$. Double cosets are not uniquely presented by triples $(I,w,J)$. We describe what we call the lex-minimal presentation, and prove that there exists a unique such object for each double coset. Lex-minimal presentations are then used to enumerate double cosets via a finite automaton depending on the Coxeter graph for $(W,S)$. As an example, we present a formula for the number of parabolic double cosets with a fixed minimal element when $W$ is the symmetric group $S_n$ (in this case, parabolic subgroups are also known as Young subgroups). Our formula is almost always linear time computable in $n$, and we show how it can be generalized to any Coxeter group with little additional work. We spell out formulas for all finite and affine Weyl groups in the case that $w$ is the identity element.