We study the Čerednik–Drinfeld p-adic uniformization of certain Atkin–Lehner quotients of Shimura curves over ℚ. We use it to determine over which local fields they have rational points and divisors of a given degree. Using a criterion of Poonen and Stoll, we show that the Shafarevich–Tate group of their jacobians is not of square order for infinitely many cases.

Nous donnons une majoration de la somme d'exponentielles SM = [sum ]Mm=1e(f(m)) lorsque la dérivée cinquième de f est d'un ordre de grandeur constant petit, noté λ, en fonction de M et de λ, améliorant un résultat ancien de Van Der Corput. La démonstration utilise un théorème de moyenne des puissances sixièmes de sommes d'exponentielles qui fait l'objet d'un article indépendant [6].

We give a bound for the exponential sum SM = [sum ]Mm=1e(f(m)) where f is a real-valued function whose fifth derivative is of a constant small size, say λ, by means of M and λ, improving an old result of Van Der Corput. The proof relies on a mean value theorem for sixth powers of exponential sums which is treated independently in [6].

Power series $\sum_{n=0}^\infty f(n)x^n$ with non-zero convergence radius $R(f)$ are considered, and the arithmetical nature (that is, irrationality, or even transcendence) of the corresponding multivariate series $\smash{\sum_{i_1,\ldots,i_m\!=0}^\infty f(i_1+\ldots +i_m)x_1^{i_1}\cdot\ldots \cdot x_m^{i_m}}$ is studied if $x_1,\ldots,x_m$ and the sequence $(f(n))$ satisfy appropriate arithmetical conditions. It follows that such arithmetical results can be written down easily if linear independence results on the function $F(x)$, defined in $|x|\,{<}\,R(f)$ by the original one-dimensional power series, and possibly its derivatives at the points $x_\mu$ are known. Some typical applications are explicitly stated.

For any positive integer n we let $P(n)$ be the largest prime factor of n. We improve and generalize several results of P. Erdős and C. Stewart on $P(n!+1)$. In particular, we show that $\limsup_{n \to \infty}P(n!+1)/n \ge 2.5$, which improves their lower bound of $\limsup_{n \to \infty} P(n!+1)/n >2$.

The existence of periodic solutions for the nonlinear asymmetric oscillator $ x''{+}\alpha x^+{-}\beta x^- {=} h(t),\qquad (' = d/dt) $ is discussed, where $\alpha, \beta$ are positive constants satisfying $ {1}/{\sqrt{\alpha}} + {1}/{\sqrt{\beta}} = {2}/{n} $ for some positive integer $n\in {\bf \mathbb{N}}$ and $h(t)\in L^\infty(0,2\pi)$ is $2\pi$-periodic with $x^{\pm}=\max\{\pm x, 0\}$.

Let V be a finite-dimensional vector space over a finite field. The general and special linear groups, GL(V) and SL(V), act on the exterior algebras $\Lambda^*V$ and $\Lambda^*V^*$ of V and its dual $V^*$, and on the symmetric algebra $\S^*V$. The subring of SL(V)-invariants of $\Lambda^*V\otimes\S^*V$ was determined by Dickson and Mui. This paper describes the equivalent, but simpler, calculation of the invariant subring of $\Lambda^*V^*\otimes\S^*V$ as a representation of GL(V)/SL(V).

In this paper, we show first that any prime (or semiprime) element of a commutative Banach algebra must have closed range. As a corollary, we find that in a commutative radical Banach algebra, all primes are zero divisors; indeed, all semiprimes are zero divisors (see below for the definition of semiprimeness). Our result is also true of a semiprime that is in the centre of a noncommutative Banach algebra.

The proof is fairly simple and entertaining, and we obtain a result that is helpful for the ambitious classification of elements in commutative radical Banach algebras being attempted by Marc Thomas. It is also related to the unbounded Kleinecke–Shirov conjecture.

This paper proves that a subgroup of finite index in a positively finitely generated profinite group has maximal subgroup growth at most $n^{\log (n\!)}$. In particular such a subgroup cannot be free, answering a question by L. Pyber.

Richard Rado was born in Berlin; he was the second son of Leopold Rado, from Budapest. At one stage of his education he had to decide whether to become a concert pianist or a mathematician. He chose the latter in the belief that he could continue with music as a hobby, but that he could never treat mathematics in that way. He studied at the University of Berlin, but also spent some time in Göttingen. He took a DPh at Berlin with his thesis ‘Studien zur Kombinatorik’ [3] under Issai Schur in 1933. During this period he was also influenced by Erhard Schmidt.

On 16 March 1933, he married Luise Zadek, the elder daughter of Hermann Zadek, whom he had earlier come to know when he needed a partner to play piano duets. It was indeed a remarkable partnership.

As Hitler came to power in 1933, the Rados, being Jewish, made their way to England, Richard having obtained a scholarship of £300 p.a. from Sir Robert Mond through the recommendation of Professor Lindemann (later Lord Cherwell), who had interviewed him in Berlin, to enable him to study at Cambridge.

It is shown that a rational function of degree [ges ] 2 admits an invariant line field with respect to some measure μ, which is an equilibrium state of a Hölder continuous potential whose topological pressure is greater than its supremum, only in very special cases when the Julia set is either a geometric circle or an interval, or totally disconnected and contained in a real-analytic curve.

A new inequality concerning generalized characters of $p$-groups is obtained and applications to bounding the number of irreducible characters in blocks of finite groups are given.

The paper presents an improvement of the author's earlier estimate for the average number of limit cycles of a planar polynomial vector field situated in a neighbourhood of the origin, provided that the field is close enough to a linear centre in a larger neighbourhood. The result follows from a new distributional inequality for the number of zeros of a family of univariate holomorphic functions depending holomorphically on a parameter.

Let M and N be closed non-positively curved manifolds, and let f[ratio ]M→N be a smooth map. Results of Eells and Sampson [1] show that f is homotopic to a harmonic map ϕ, and Hartman [6] showed that this ϕ is unique when N is negatively curved and f∗(π1M) is not cyclic. Lawson and Yau conjectured that if f[ratio ]M→N is a homotopy equivalence, where M and N are negatively curved, then the unique harmonic map ϕ homotopic to f would be a diffeomorphism. Counterexamples to this conjecture appeared in [2], and later in [7] and [5].

There remains the question of whether a ‘topological’ Lawson–Yau conjecture holds.

There is a Weil cohomology theory with coefficients in a pseudofinite field of characteristic zero.

The preceding paper ‘Strong statements of analysis’ by A. R. D. Mathias defends a so-called full-blooded set theory without full detail [3]. He again objects to a weak set theory which he calls ‘Mac’, in which the usual Zermelo–Fraenkel separation scheme is required only for formulas with suitably ‘restricted’ quantifiers. I had proposed that such separation is adequate for all standard uses of set theory in mathematics. But Mathias has not produced any counter examples of actual mathematics which requires the use of a stronger separation.

The context of this note is as follows. One considers a connected reductive group G and a Frobenius endomorphism F[ratio ]G→G defining G over a finite field of order q. One denotes by GF the associated (finite) group of fixed points.

Let [lscr ] be a prime not dividing q. We are interested in the [lscr ]-blocks of the finite group GF. Such a block is called unipotent if there is a unipotent character (see, for instance, [6, Definition 12.1]) among its representations in characteristic zero. Roughly speaking, it is believed that the study of arbitrary blocks of GF might be reduced to unipotent blocks (see [2, Théorème 2.3], [5, Remark 3.6]). In view of certain conjectures about blocks (see, for instance, [9]), it would be interesting to further reduce the study of unipotent blocks to the study of principal blocks (blocks containing the trivial character). Our Theorem 7 is a step in that direction: we show that the local structure of any unipotent block of GF is very close to that of a principal block of a group of related type (notion of ‘control of fusion’, see [13, §49]).

We prove tight closure analogues of results of Watanabe about chains and families of integrally closed ideals.

If we consider the 14-sided hyperbolic polygon of Felix Klein that defines his famous surface of genus 3, then we observe that we have a uniform, unifacial dessin whose automorphism group is transitive on the edges, but not on the directed edges of the dessin. We show that Klein's surface is the unique platonic surface with this property.

For all smooth nondecreasing functions f on [0, 1], the local time Lf spent by standard Brownian motion on the graph of f satisfies P(Lf<x) [ges ]P(2L0<x), for x>0. The constant 2 in this inequality may not be replaced with a smaller one.

Using basic harmonic analysis on the n-torus, it is shown that the non-commutative n-tori are the only primitive C*-algebras (up to isomorphism) on which the n-torus [ ]n acts freely and ergodically. An explicit construction recovers the generating unitaries in a natural way from the action.