Circle packings, kissing reflection groups and critically fixed anti-rational maps

In this article, we establish an explicit correspondence between kissing reflection groups and critically fixed anti-rational maps. The correspondence, which is expressed using simple planar graphs, has several dynamical consequences. As an application of this correspondence, we give complete answers to geometric mating problems for critically fixed anti-rational maps.

p-Adic estimates of abelian Artin L-functions on curves

The purpose of this article is to prove a ‘Newton over Hodge’ result for finite characters on curves. Let X be a smooth proper curve over a finite field $\mathbb {F}_q$ of characteristic $p\geq 3$ and let $V \subset X$ be an affine curve. Consider a nontrivial finite character $\rho :\pi _1^{et}(V) \to \mathbb {C}^{\times }$ . In this article, we prove a lower bound on the Newton polygon of the L-function $L(\rho ,s)$ . The estimate depends on monodromy invariants of $\rho $ : the Swan conductor and the local exponents. Under certain nondegeneracy assumptions, this lower bound agrees with the irregular Hodge filtration introduced by Deligne. In particular, our result further demonstrates Deligne’s prediction that the irregular Hodge filtration would force p-adic bounds on L-functions. As a corollary, we obtain estimates on the Newton polygon of a curve with a cyclic action in terms of monodromy invariants.

Topological models for stable motivic invariants of regular number rings

For an infinity of number rings we express stable motivic invariants in terms of topological data determined by the complex numbers, the real numbers and finite fields. We use this to extend Morel’s identification of the endomorphism ring of the motivic sphere with the Grothendieck–Witt ring of quadratic forms to deeper base schemes.

Topology of random -dimensional cubical complexes

We study a natural model of a random $2$ -dimensional cubical complex which is a subcomplex of an n-dimensional cube, and where every possible square $2$ -face is included independently with probability p. Our main result exhibits a sharp threshold $p=1/2$ for homology vanishing as $n \to \infty $ . This is a $2$ -dimensional analogue of the Burtin and Erdoős–Spencer theorems characterising the connectivity threshold for random graphs on the $1$ -skeleton of the n-dimensional cube. Our main result can also be seen as a cubical counterpart to the Linial–Meshulam theorem for random $2$ -dimensional simplicial complexes. However, the models exhibit strikingly different behaviours. We show that if $p> 1 - \sqrt {1/2} \approx 0.2929$ , then with high probability the fundamental group is a free group with one generator for every maximal $1$ -dimensional face. As a corollary, homology vanishing and simple connectivity have the same threshold, even in the strong ‘hitting time’ sense. This is in contrast with the simplicial case, where the thresholds are far apart. The proof depends on an iterative algorithm for contracting cycles – we show that with high probability, the algorithm rapidly and dramatically simplifies the fundamental group, converging after only a few steps.

Extensions of homomorphisms between localities

We show that the automorphism group of a linking system associated to a saturated fusion system $\mathcal {F}$ depends only on $\mathcal {F}$ as long as the object set of the linking system is $\mathrm {Aut}(\mathcal {F})$ -invariant. This was known to be true for linking systems in Oliver’s definition, but we demonstrate that the result holds also for linking systems in the considerably more general definition introduced previously by the author of this article. A similar result is proved for linking localities, which are group-like structures corresponding to linking systems. Our argument builds on a general lemma about the existence of an extension of a homomorphism between localities. This lemma is also used to reprove a theorem of Chermak showing that there is a natural bijection between the sets of partial normal subgroups of two possibly different linking localities over the same fusion system.

On the Tits–Weiss conjecture and the Kneser–Tits conjecture for and (With an Appendix by R. M. Weiss)

We prove that the structure group of any Albert algebra over an arbitrary field is R-trivial. This implies the Tits–Weiss conjecture for Albert algebras and the Kneser–Tits conjecture for isotropic groups of type $\mathrm {E}_{7,1}^{78}, \mathrm {E}_{8,2}^{78}$ . As a further corollary, we show that some standard conjectures on the groups of R-equivalence classes in algebraic groups and the norm principle are true for strongly inner forms of type $^1\mathrm {E}_6$ .

Verlinde formulae on complex surfaces: K-theoretic invariants

We conjecture a Verlinde type formula for the moduli space of Higgs sheaves on a surface with a holomorphic 2-form. The conjecture specializes to a Verlinde formula for the moduli space of sheaves. Our formula interpolates between K-theoretic Donaldson invariants studied by Göttsche and Nakajima-Yoshioka and K-theoretic Vafa-Witten invariants introduced by Thomas and also studied by Göttsche and Kool. We verify our conjectures in many examples (for example, on K3 surfaces).

Curves on K3 surfaces in divisibility 2

We prove a conjecture of Maulik, Pandharipande and Thomas expressing the Gromov–Witten invariants of K3 surfaces for divisibility 2 curve classes in all genera in terms of weakly holomorphic quasi-modular forms of level 2. Then we establish the holomorphic anomaly equation in divisibility 2 in all genera. Our approach involves a refined boundary induction, relying on the top tautological group of the moduli space of smooth curves, together with a degeneration formula for the reduced virtual fundamental class with imprimitive curve classes. We use double ramification relations with target variety as a new tool to prove the initial condition. The relationship between the holomorphic anomaly equation for higher divisibility and the conjectural multiple cover formula of Oberdieck and Pandharipande is discussed in detail and illustrated with several examples.

Counterexamples to Hochschild-Kostant-Rosenberg in characteristic p

We give counterexamples to the degeneration of the Hochschild-Kostant-Rosenberg spectral sequence in characteristic p, both in the untwisted and twisted settings. We also prove that the de Rham-HP and crystalline-TP spectral sequences need not degenerate.