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1. Intersective sets for sparse sets of integers

   https://doi.org/10.1017/etds.2024.73  

   BIENVENU, PIERRE-YVES; GRIESMER, JOHN T; LE, ANH N; LÊ, THÁI HOÀNG (May 2025, Ergodic Theory and Dynamical Systems)

   Abstract For$$E \subset \mathbb {N}$$, a subset$$R \subset \mathbb {N}$$isE-intersectiveif for every$$A \subset E$$having positive relative density,$$R \cap (A - A) \neq \varnothing $$. We say thatRischromatically E-intersectiveif for every finite partition$$E=\bigcup _{i=1}^k E_i$$, there existsisuch that$$R\cap (E_i-E_i)\neq \varnothing $$. When$$E=\mathbb {N}$$, we recover the usual notions of intersectivity and chromatic intersectivity. We investigate to what extent the known intersectivity results hold in the relative setting when$$E = \mathbb {P}$$, the set of primes, or other sparse subsets of$$\mathbb {N}$$. Among other things, we prove the following: (1) the set of shifted Chen primes$$\mathbb {P}_{\mathrm {Chen}} + 1$$is both intersective and$$\mathbb {P}$$-intersective; (2) there exists an intersective set that is not$$\mathbb {P}$$-intersective; (3) every$$\mathbb {P}$$-intersective set is intersective; (4) there exists a chromatically$$\mathbb {P}$$-intersective set which is not intersective (and therefore not$$\mathbb {P}$$-intersective). 

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2. A raising operator formula for Macdonald polynomials

   https://doi.org/10.1017/fms.2025.8  

   Blasiak, J; Haiman, M; Morse, J; Pun, A; Seelinger, G H (January 2025, Forum of Mathematics, Sigma)

   Abstract We give an explicit raising operator formula for the modified Macdonald polynomials$$\tilde {H}_{\mu }(X;q,t)$$, which follows from our recent formula for$$\nabla $$on an LLT polynomial and the Haglund-Haiman-Loehr formula expressing modified Macdonald polynomials as sums of LLT polynomials. Our method just as easily yields a formula for a family of symmetric functions$$\tilde {H}^{1,n}(X;q,t)$$that we call$$1,n$$-Macdonald polynomials, which reduce to a scalar multiple of$$\tilde {H}_{\mu }(X;q,t)$$when$$n=1$$. We conjecture that the coefficients of$$1,n$$-Macdonald polynomials in terms of Schur functions belong to$${\mathbb N}[q,t]$$, generalizing Macdonald positivity. 

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3. Almost all orbits of the Collatz map attain almost bounded values

   https://doi.org/10.1017/fmp.2022.8  

   Tao, Terence (January 2022, Forum of Mathematics, Pi)

   Abstract Define theCollatz map$${\operatorname {Col}} \colon \mathbb {N}+1 \to \mathbb {N}+1$$on the positive integers$$\mathbb {N}+1 = \{1,2,3,\dots \}$$by setting$${\operatorname {Col}}(N)$$equal to$$3N+1$$whenNis odd and$$N/2$$whenNis even, and let$${\operatorname {Col}}_{\min }(N) := \inf _{n \in \mathbb {N}} {\operatorname {Col}}^n(N)$$denote the minimal element of the Collatz orbit$$N, {\operatorname {Col}}(N), {\operatorname {Col}}^2(N), \dots $$. The infamousCollatz conjectureasserts that$${\operatorname {Col}}_{\min }(N)=1$$for all$$N \in \mathbb {N}+1$$. Previously, it was shown by Korec that for any$$\theta> \frac {\log 3}{\log 4} \approx 0.7924$$, one has$${\operatorname {Col}}_{\min }(N) \leq N^\theta $$for almost all$$N \in \mathbb {N}+1$$(in the sense of natural density). In this paper, we show that foranyfunction$$f \colon \mathbb {N}+1 \to \mathbb {R}$$with$$\lim _{N \to \infty } f(N)=+\infty $$, one has$${\operatorname {Col}}_{\min }(N) \leq f(N)$$for almost all$$N \in \mathbb {N}+1$$(in the sense of logarithmic density). Our proof proceeds by establishing a stabilisation property for a certain first passage random variable associated with the Collatz iteration (or more precisely, the closely related Syracuse iteration), which in turn follows from estimation of the characteristic function of a certain skew random walk on a$$3$$-adic cyclic group$$\mathbb {Z}/3^n\mathbb {Z}$$at high frequencies. This estimation is achieved by studying how a certain two-dimensional renewal process interacts with a union of triangles associated to a given frequency. 

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4. Efficient simplicial replacement of semialgebraic sets

   https://doi.org/10.1017/fms.2023.36  

   Basu, Saugata; Karisani, Negin (January 2023, Forum of Mathematics, Sigma)

   Abstract Designing an algorithm with a singly exponential complexity for computing semialgebraic triangulations of a given semialgebraic set has been a holy grail in algorithmic semialgebraic geometry. More precisely, given a description of a semialgebraic set$$S \subset \mathbb {R}^k$$by a first-order quantifier-free formula in the language of the reals, the goal is to output a simplicial complex$$\Delta $$, whose geometric realization,$$|\Delta |$$, is semialgebraically homeomorphic toS. In this paper, we consider a weaker version of this question. We prove that for any$$\ell \geq 0$$, there exists an algorithm which takes as input a description of a semialgebraic subset$$S \subset \mathbb {R}^k$$given by a quantifier-free first-order formula$$\phi $$in the language of the reals and produces as output a simplicial complex$$\Delta $$, whose geometric realization,$$|\Delta |$$is$$\ell $$-equivalent toS. The complexity of our algorithm is bounded by$$(sd)^{k^{O(\ell )}}$$, wheresis the number of polynomials appearing in the formula$$\phi $$, andda bound on their degrees. For fixed$$\ell $$, this bound issingly exponentialink. In particular, since$$\ell $$-equivalence implies that thehomotopy groupsup to dimension$$\ell $$of$$|\Delta |$$are isomorphic to those ofS, we obtain a reduction (having singly exponential complexity) of the problem of computing the first$$\ell $$homotopy groups ofSto the combinatorial problem of computing the first$$\ell $$homotopy groups of a finite simplicial complex of size bounded by$$(sd)^{k^{O(\ell )}}$$. 

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5. THE TREE PIGEONHOLE PRINCIPLE IN THE WEIHRAUCH DEGREES

   https://doi.org/10.1017/jsl.2025.11  

   DZHAFAROV, DAMIR D; SOLOMON, REED; VALENTI, MANLIO (February 2025, The Journal of Symbolic Logic)

   Abstract We study versions of the tree pigeonhole principle,$$\mathsf {TT}^1$$, in the context of Weihrauch-style computable analysis. The principle has previously been the subject of extensive research in reverse mathematics, an outstanding question of which investigation is whether$$\mathsf {TT}^1$$is$$\Pi ^1_1$$-conservative over the ordinary pigeonhole principle,$$\mathsf {RT}^1$$. Using the recently introduced notion of the first-order part of an instance-solution problem, we formulate the analog of this question for Weihrauch reducibility, and give an affirmative answer. In combination with other results, we use this to show that unlike$$\mathsf {RT}^1$$, the problem$$\mathsf {TT}^1$$is not Weihrauch requivalent to any first-order problem. Our proofs develop new combinatorial machinery for constructing and understanding solutions to instances of$$\mathsf {TT}^1$$. 

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