Zeroes of polynomials on definable hypersurfaces: pathologies exist, but they are rare
Abstract

Given a sequence $\{Z_d\}_{d\in \mathbb{N}}$ of smooth and compact hypersurfaces in ${\mathbb{R}}^{n-1}$, we prove that (up to extracting subsequences) there exists a regular definable hypersurface $\Gamma \subset {\mathbb{R}}\textrm{P}^n$ such that each manifold $Z_d$ is diffeomorphic to a component of the zero set on $\Gamma$ of some polynomial of degree $d$. (This is in sharp contrast with the case when $\Gamma$ is semialgebraic, where for example the homological complexity of the zero set of a polynomial $p$ on $\Gamma$ is bounded by a polynomial in $\deg (p)$.) More precisely, given the above sequence of hypersurfaces, we construct a regular, compact, semianalytic hypersurface $\Gamma \subset {\mathbb{R}}\textrm{P}^{n}$ containing a subset $D$ homeomorphic to a disk, and a family of polynomials $\{p_m\}_{m\in \mathbb{N}}$ of degree $\deg (p_m)=d_m$ such that $(D, Z(p_m)\cap D)\sim ({\mathbb{R}}^{n-1}, Z_{d_m}),$ i.e. the zero set of $p_m$ in $D$ is isotopic to $Z_{d_m}$ in ${\mathbb{R}}^{n-1}$. This says that, up to extracting subsequences, the intersection of $\Gamma$ with a hypersurface of degree $d$ can be as complicated as we want. We call these ‘pathological examples’. In particular, we show that for every $0 \leq k \leq n-2$ and every sequence of natural numbers $a=\{a_d\}_{d\in \mathbb{N}}$ there is a regular, compact semianalytic more »

Authors:
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Award ID(s):
Publication Date:
NSF-PAR ID:
10120351
Journal Name:
The Quarterly Journal of Mathematics
Volume:
70
Issue:
4
Page Range or eLocation-ID:
p. 1397-1409
ISSN:
0033-5606
Publisher:
Oxford University Press
1. Let $p:\mathbb{C}\rightarrow \mathbb{C}$ be a polynomial. The Gauss–Lucas theorem states that its critical points, $p^{\prime }(z)=0$ , are contained in the convex hull of its roots. We prove a stability version whose simplest form is as follows: suppose that $p$ has $n+m$ roots, where $n$ are inside the unit disk, $$\begin{eqnarray}\max _{1\leq i\leq n}|a_{i}|\leq 1~\text{and}~m~\text{are outside}~\min _{n+1\leq i\leq n+m}|a_{i}|\geq d>1+\frac{2m}{n};\end{eqnarray}$$ then $p^{\prime }$ has $n-1$ roots inside the unit disk and $m$ roots at distance at least $(dn-m)/(n+m)>1$ from the origin and the involved constants are sharp. We also discuss a pairing result: in the setting above, for $n$ sufficiently large, each of the $m$ roots has a critical point at distance ${\sim}n^{-1}$ .
2. Abstract Given $n$ general points $p_1, p_2, \ldots , p_n \in{\mathbb{P}}^r$ it is natural to ask whether there is a curve of given degree $d$ and genus $g$ passing through them; by counting dimensions a natural conjecture is that such a curve exists if and only if $$\begin{equation*}n \leq \left\lfloor \frac{(r + 1)d - (r - 3)(g - 1)}{r - 1}\right\rfloor.\end{equation*}$$The case of curves with nonspecial hyperplane section was recently studied in [2], where the above conjecture was shown to hold with exactly three exceptions. In this paper, we prove a “bounded-error analog” for special linear series on general curves; more precisely we show that existence of such a curve subject to the stronger inequality $$\begin{equation*}n \leq \left\lfloor \frac{(r + 1)d - (r - 3)(g - 1)}{r - 1}\right\rfloor - 3.\end{equation*}$$Note that the $-3$ cannot be replaced with $-2$ without introducing exceptions (as a canonical curve in ${\mathbb{P}}^3$ can only pass through nine general points, while a naive dimension count predicts twelve). We also use the same technique to prove that the twist of the normal bundle $N_C(-1)$ satisfies interpolation for curves whose degree is sufficiently large relative to their genus, and deduce from this that the number of generalmore »
3. Abstract We prove an inequality that unifies previous works of the authors on the properties of the Radon transform on convex bodies including an extension of the Busemann–Petty problem and a slicing inequality for arbitrary functions. Let $K$ and $L$ be star bodies in ${\mathbb R}^n,$ let $0<k<n$ be an integer, and let $f,g$ be non-negative continuous functions on $K$ and $L$, respectively, so that $\|g\|_\infty =g(0)=1.$ Then \begin{align*} & \frac{\int_Kf}{\left(\int_L g\right)^{\frac{n-k}n}|K|^{\frac kn}} \le \frac n{n-k} \left(d_{\textrm{ovr}}(K,\mathcal{B}\mathcal{P}_k^n)\right)^k \max_{H} \frac{\int_{K\cap H} f}{\int_{L\cap H} g}, \end{align*}where $|K|$ stands for volume of proper dimension, $C$ is an absolute constant, the maximum is taken over all $(n-k)$-dimensional subspaces of ${\mathbb R}^n,$ and $d_{\textrm{ovr}}(K,\mathcal{B}\mathcal{P}_k^n)$ is the outer volume ratio distance from $K$ to the class of generalized $k$-intersection bodies in ${\mathbb R}^n.$ Another consequence of this result is a mean value inequality for the Radon transform. We also obtain a generalization of the isomorphic version of the Shephard problem.
4. Abstract Let $\gamma(G)$ and $${\gamma _ \circ }(G)$$ denote the sizes of a smallest dominating set and smallest independent dominating set in a graph G, respectively. One of the first results in probabilistic combinatorics is that if G is an n -vertex graph of minimum degree at least d , then $$$$\gamma(G) \leq \frac{n}{d}(\log d + 1).$$$$ In this paper the main result is that if G is any n -vertex d -regular graph of girth at least five, then $$$$\gamma_(G) \leq \frac{n}{d}(\log d + c)$$$$ for some constant c independent of d . This result is sharp in the sense that as $d \rightarrow \infty$ , almost all d -regular n -vertex graphs G of girth at least five have $$$$\gamma_(G) \sim \frac{n}{d}\log d.$$$$ Furthermore, if G is a disjoint union of ${n}/{(2d)}$ complete bipartite graphs $K_{d,d}$ , then ${\gamma_\circ}(G) = \frac{n}{2}$ . We also prove that there are n -vertex graphs G of minimum degree d and whose maximum degree grows not much faster than d log d such that ${\gamma_\circ}(G) \sim {n}/{2}$ as $d \rightarrow \infty$ . Therefore both the girth and regularity conditions are required for the main result.
Let $f(z) = \sum_{n=1}^\infty a_f(n)q^n$ be a holomorphic cuspidal newform with even integral weight $k\geq 2$, level N, trivial nebentypus and no complex multiplication. For all primes p, we may define $\theta_p\in [0,\pi]$ such that $a_f(p) = 2p^{(k-1)/2}\cos \theta_p$. The Sato–Tate conjecture states that the angles θp are equidistributed with respect to the probability measure $\mu_{\textrm{ST}}(I) = \frac{2}{\pi}\int_I \sin^2 \theta \; d\theta$, where $I\subseteq [0,\pi]$. Using recent results on the automorphy of symmetric power L-functions due to Newton and Thorne, we explicitly bound the error term in the Sato–Tate conjecture when f corresponds to an elliptic curve over $\mathbb{Q}$ of arbitrary conductor or when f has square-free level. In these cases, if $\pi_{f,I}(x) := \#\{p \leq x : p \nmid N, \theta_p\in I\}$ and $\pi(x) := \# \{p \leq x \}$, we prove the following bound: $$\left| \frac{\pi_{f,I}(x)}{\pi(x)} - \mu_{\textrm{ST}}(I)\right| \leq 58.1\frac{\log((k-1)N \log{x})}{\sqrt{\log{x}}} \qquad \text{for} \quad x \geq 3.$$ As an application, we give an explicit bound for the number of primes up to x that violate the Atkin–Serre conjecture for f.