Trends in Commutative Algebra

In the 2012–13 academic year, the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute, Berkeley, hosted programs in Commutative Algebra (Fall 2012 and Spring 2013) and Noncommutative Algebraic Geometry and Representation Theory (Spring 2013). There have been many significant developments in these fields in recent years; what is more, the boundary between them has become increasingly blurred. This was apparent during the MSRI program, where there were a number of joint seminars on subjects of common interest: birational geometry, D-modules, invariant theory, matrix factorizations, noncommutative resolutions, singularity categories, support varieties, and tilting theory, to name a few. These volumes reflect the lively interaction between the subjects witnessed at MSRI. The Introductory Workshops and Connections for Women Workshops for the two programs included lecture series by experts in the field. The volumes include a number of survey articles based on these lectures, along with expository articles and research papers by participants of the programs. Volume 2 focuses on the most recent research.

Macaulay is a system for computing in algebraic geometry and cummutative algebra; it is capable of a variety of computations which are tedious or impossible to perform by hand. The primitive types in the system are polynomials, matrices, ideals, polynomial rings, modules, maps between rings, and complexes of modules. The system performs algebraic manipulation on objects of these types. The possible manipulations include the computation of standard (Gröbner) bases, modules of syzygies, finite free resolutions, Hilbert polynomials and functions. Using these basic operations, a variety of derived operations are possible, such as projections, ideal intersections, and the computation of coherent sheaf cohomology groups. The algorithm used for constructing standard (Gröbner) bases and syzygies is described in ([Buc76], [Zac78], [Sch80], [Bay82], [BaSt86a]).

This volume presents an elaborated version of lecture notes for two advanced courses: (Re)Emerging methods in Commutative Algebra and Representation Theory and Building Bridges Between Algebra and Topology, held at the CRM in the spring of 2015. Homological algebra is a rich and ubiquitous area; it is both an active field of research and a widespread toolbox for many mathematicians. Together, these notes introduce recent applications and interactions of homological methods in commutative algebra, representation theory and topology, narrowing the gap between specialists from different areas wishing to acquaint themselves with a rapidly growing field. The covered topics range from a fresh introduction to the growing area of support theory for triangulated categories to the striking consequences of the formulation in the homotopy theory of classical concepts in commutative algebra. Moreover, they also include a higher categories view of Hall algebras and an introduction to the use of idempotent functors in algebra and topology.

A line transversal of a family S of n pairwise disjoint convex objects is a straight line meeting all members of S. A geometric permutation of S is the pair of orders in which members of S are met by a line transversal, one order being the reverse of the other. In this note we consider a long-standing open problem in transversal theory, namely, that of determining the largest number of geometric permutations that a family of n pairwise disjoint convex objects in Rd can admit. We settle a restricted variant of this problem. Specifically, we show that the maximum number of those geometric permutations to a family of n > 2 pairwise-disjoint convex objects that are induced by lines passing through any fixed point is between K (n − 1, d − 1) and K (n, d − 1), where K (n, d) =d i=0 ( n−1 i ) = (nd) is the number of pairs of antipodal cells in a simple arrangement of n great (d − 1)-spheres in a d-sphere. By a similar argument, we show that the maximum number of connected components of the space of all line transversals through a fixed point to a family of n > 2 possibly intersecting convex objects is K (n, d − 1). Finally, we refute a conjecture of Sharir and Smorodinsky on the number of neighbor pairs in geometric permutations and offer an alternative conjecture which may be a first step towards solving the aforementioned general problem of bounding the number of geometric permutations. ∗ Work on this paper has been partially supported by a grant from the U.S.–Israeli Binational Science Foundation. The first author’s work on this paper has also been supported by NSF Grant CCR-9972568 and NSF ITR Grant CCR-0081964. Part of the work was performed while he was visiting the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute, Berkeley, California. Part of the work on this paper was performed while the second author was a Ph.D student at Tel-Aviv University, under the supervision of Micha Sharir, and later a postdoctoral fellow at the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute, Berkeley, California. 286 B. Aronov and S. Smorodinsky

Participants at an October workshop at the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute in Berkeley, California, learned that a team of mathematicians has proved a deep similarity between a simple form of solitaire and a mathematical tool called random matrices, originally developed to understand the quantum behavior of large atoms. The implications could go well beyond card games to some of the most puzzling patterns in mathematics. Other recent work suggests that the same random matrix key might unlock the most important problem in number theory: proving the Riemann hypothesis, which describes how prime numbers are distributed among other integers.

Let u be an eigenfunction of the Laplacian on a compact manifold with boundary, with Dirichlet or Neumann boundary conditions, and let −λ2 be the corresponding eigenvalue. We consider the problem of estimating max M u in terms of λ, for large λ, assuming ∫ M u 2 = 1. We prove that max M u ≤C M λ(n − 1)/2, which is optimal for some M. Our proof simplifies some of the arguments used before for such problems. We review the ‘wave equation method’ and discuss some special cases which may be handled by more direct methods. *This work was partially supported by NSF grant DMS-9306389 and by the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute, Berkeley.

A conference on the interaction of ergodic theory, differential geometry and the theory of Lie Groups was held at the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute from May 24 to June 1, 1984. This is a report of the problem session organized by A. Katok and R. Zimmer and held on May 25, 1984 dealing with the topics in the title. Another problem session was centred on the rigidity of manifolds of non-positive curvature and related topics concerning their geodesic flows. This is reported on by K. Burns and A. Karok separately [2].

This book is a modern introduction to model theory which stresses applications to algebra throughout the text. The first half of the book includes classical material on model construction techniques, type spaces, prime models, saturated models, countable models, and indiscernibles and their applications. The author also includes an introduction to stability theory beginning with Morley's Categoricity Theorem and concentrating on omega-stable theories. One significant aspect of this text is the inclusion of chapters on important topics not covered in other introductory texts, such as omega-stable groups and the geometry of strongly minimal sets. The author then goes on to illustrate how these ingredients are used in Hrushovski's applications to diophantine geometry. David Marker is Professor of Mathematics at the University of Illinois at Chicago. His main area of research involves mathematical logic and model theory, and their applications to algebra and geometry. This book was developed from a series of lectures given by the author at the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute in 1998.

It is well-known that sums and products of holomorphic functions are holomorphic, and the holomorphic functions on a complex manifold form a commutative algebra over C . The study of complex manifolds using algebras of holomorphic functions upon them is called complex algebraic geometry. The purpose of this paper is to develop an analogue of complex algebraic geometry, in which the complex numbers C are replaced by the quaternions H . The natural quaternionic analogue of a complex manifold is called a hypercomplex manifold. A class of H -valued functions on hypercomplex manifolds will be defined, called q-holomorphic functions, that are analogues of holomorphic functions on complex manifolds. Now, the set of holomorphic functions on a complex manifold is a commutative algebra over C . Therefore one asks: does the set of q-holomorphic functions on a hypercomplex manifold have an analogous algebraic structure, and if so, what is it? We shall show that the q-holomorphic functions on a (noncompact) hypercomplex manifold do indeed possess a rich algebraic structure. To describe it, we shall introduce a theory of quaternionic algebra, which is a quaternionic analogue of real linear algebra. This theory is built on three building blocks: AH-modules, the analogues of vector spaces, AH-morphisms, the analogues of linear maps, and the quaternionic tensor product, the analogue of tensor product of real vector spaces. As far as the author can tell, these ideas seem to be new. They enable us to construct algebraic structures over H as though H were a commutative field. Quaternionic algebra describes the algebraic structure of hypercomplex manifolds in a remarkable way, and it seems to be the natural language of hypercomplex algebraic geometry, the algebraic geometry of hypercomplex manifolds. We believe that quaternionic algebra is worth studying for its own sake. It has many similarities with linear algebra over R or C , which is why the analogies between complex and quaternionic theories work so well, but there are also deep differences, which give quaternionic algebra a flavour all of its own. Quillen [12] has given a sheaf-theoretic interpretation of the ideas of quaternionic algebra, based on a previous version of this paper. He finds a contravariant equivalence between a class of AH-modules and regular sheaves on a real form of CP. Regular sheaves on CP are equivalent to representations of the Kronecker quiver, and out of such a representation Quillen constructs an AH-module. Under Quillen’s equivalence stable AH-modules correspond to regular vector bundles over the real form of CP.

Methods and results from the representation theory of finite di- mensional algebras have led to many interactions with other areas of mathe- matics. Such areas include the theory of Lie algebras and quantum groups, commutative algebra, algebraic geometry and topology, and in particular the new theory of cluster algebras. The aim of this workshop was to further de- velop such interactions and to stimulate progress in the representation theory of algebras.

‎Let $S$ be a (not necessarily commutative) Clifford semigroup with idempotent set $E$. In this paper, we show that the first (second) Hochschild cohomology group and the first (second) module cohomology group of semigroup algbera $\ell^1(S)$ with coefficients in $\ell^\infty(S)$ (and also $\ell^1(S)^{(2n-1)}$ for $n\in \mathbb{N}$) are equal.

This paper is dedicated to the memory of Maurice Auslander, whose love of mathematics will always be an inspiration

This paper discuses localization, one of the most important concepts in commutative algebra. A process by which new rings are constructed. The nature of the resulting new ring depends on that of a multiplicative subset of the given ring. This paper also focuses on the extension of the ring of integers Z to that of rational numbers Qthat is embedding the integers into the rational numbers. Some results are stated in this paper. Keywords: localization, rings

Introduction.Given a field k and a fc-algebra A, Gerstenhaber has introduced the concept of a deformation of A [8] which is a [[/]]-algebra structure on the module A [[/]].One of the main problems of the theory of deformations is to determine those algebras for which the only deformation (modulo an equivalence relation) is the usual A-[[r]]-algebra structure on .4[[*]].Such algebras are said to be rigid.If A is a commutative /c-algebra, we may restrict our attention to those deformations of A which are commutative.This leads us to consider the commutative cohomology groups of A, Hn(A, M)s, defined by Harrison [11].The principal purpose of this paper is to investigate the following conditions on a commutative algebra A over a field k:(1) H2(A, M)s = 0 for all ^-modules M.(2) H\A,f=0.(3) A is a rigid /r-algebra in the commutative deformation theory.(4) The module of differentials of A over k is a projective /4-module.(5) A is a finite product of (not necessarily algebraic) separable extension fields of k.We may show that (1) implies (4) [9, Theorem (20.4.9)] and that (2) implies (3) [8, p. 65].Condition (1) may be expressed by saying that A is a formally smooth fc-algebra [9, 19.4.4].When A is a field, Gerstenhaber has shown that (1), (2), and ( 5) are equivalent and he conjectured that these conditions were equivalent to (3).We show that (1), ( 2), (3), and (5) are equivalent even for A semisimple (Theorem 6.5).Moreover, if A is artinian, then (1) and ( 5) are equivalent (Proposition 5.9).In another direction, if A is a geometric complete intersection, then (1), (2), and (3) are equivalent (Theorem 6.8a).If in addition A is an integral domain with a separable quotient field, then (1), ( 2), (3), and (4) are equivalent (Theorem 6.8c).In the final section, we investigate the above conditions for the group algebra B[G] of an abelian group G which is a direct sum of cyclic groups with B a commutative algebra over a field k of positive characteristic p.In addition, we consider the following condition on G and k:(6) G has no element of order p = char (k).

It is a remarkable fact that for many statistics on finite sets of combinatorial objects, the roots of the corresponding generating function are each either a complex root of unity or zero. These and related polynomials have been studied for many years by a variety of authors from the fields of combinatorics, representation theory, probability, number theory, and commutative algebra. We call such polynomials cyclotomic generating functions (CGFs). With Konvalinka, we have studied the support and asymptotic distribution of the coefficients of several families of CGFs arising from tableau and forest combinatorics. In this paper, we survey general CGFs from algebraic, analytic, and asymptotic perspectives. We review some of the many known examples of CGFs in combinatorial representation theory; describe their coefficients, moments, cumulants, and characteristic functions; and give a variety of necessary and sufficient conditions for their existence arising from probability, commutative algebra, and invariant theory. As a sample result, we show that CGFs are "generically" asymptotically normal, generalizing a result of Diaconis on $q$-binomial coefficients using work of Hwang-Zacharovas. We include several open problems concerning CGFs.