Let S be a set of n points in ${\mathbb R}^{2}$ contained in an algebraic curve C of degree d. We prove that the number of distinct distances determined by S is at least cdn4/3, unless C contains a line or a circle.

We also prove the lower bound cd′ min{m2/3n2/3, m2, n2} for the number of distinct distances between m points on one irreducible plane algebraic curve and n points on another, unless the two curves are parallel lines, orthogonal lines, or concentric circles. This generalizes a result on distances between lines of Sharir, Sheffer and Solymosi in [19].

Let A and B be disjoint sets, of size 2k, of vertices of Qn, the n-dimensional hypercube. In 1997, Bollobás and Leader proved that there must be (n − k)2k edge-disjoint paths between such A and B. They conjectured that when A is a down-set and B is an up-set, these paths may be chosen to be directed (that is, the vertices in the path form a chain). We use a novel type of compression argument to prove stronger versions of these conjectures, namely that the largest number of edge-disjoint paths between a down-set A and an up-set B is the same as the largest number of directed edge-disjoint paths between A and B. Bollobás and Leader made an analogous conjecture for vertex-disjoint paths, and we prove a strengthening of this by similar methods. We also prove similar results for all other sizes of A and B.

We show that certain topologically defined uniform spanning tree probabilities for graphs embedded in an annulus can be computed as linear combinations of Pfaffians of matrices involving the line-bundle Green's function, where the coefficients count cover-inclusive Dyck tilings of skew Young diagrams.

Let G be a finite D-quasirandom group and A ⊂ Gk a δ-dense subset. Then the density of the set of side lengths g of corners

$$ \{(a_{1},\dotsc,a_{k}),(ga_{1},a_{2},\dotsc,a_{k}),\dotsc,(ga_{1},\dotsc,ga_{k})\} \subset A $$

Classical ergodic theory for integer-group actions uses entropy as a complete invariant for isomorphism of IID (independent, identically distributed) processes (a.k.a. product measures). This theory holds for amenable groups as well. Despite recent spectacular progress of Bowen, the situation for non-amenable groups, including free groups, is still largely mysterious. We present some illustrative results and open questions on free groups, which are particularly interesting in combinatorics, statistical physics and probability. Our results include bounds on minimum and maximum bisection for random cubic graphs that improve on all past bounds.

We prove an inequality for functions on the discrete cube {0, 1}n extending the edge-isoperimetric inequality for sets. This inequality turns out to be equivalent to the following claim about random walks on the cube: subcubes maximize ‘mean first exit time’ among all subsets of the cube of the same cardinality.

For an orientation H with n vertices, let T(H) denote the maximum possible number of labelled copies of H in an n-vertex tournament. It is easily seen that T(H) ≥ n!/2e(H), as the latter is the expected number of such copies in a random tournament. For n odd, let R(H) denote the maximum possible number of labelled copies of H in an n-vertex regular tournament. In fact, Adler, Alon and Ross proved that for H=Cn, the directed Hamilton cycle, T(Cn) ≥ (e−o(1))n!/2n, and it was observed by Alon that already R(Cn) ≥ (e−o(1))n!/2n. Similar results hold for the directed Hamilton path Pn. In other words, for the Hamilton path and cycle, the lower bound derived from the expectation argument can be improved by a constant factor. In this paper we significantly extend these results, and prove that they hold for a larger family of orientations H which includes all bounded-degree Eulerian orientations and all bounded-degree balanced orientations, as well as many others. One corollary of our method is that for any fixed k, every k-regular orientation H with n vertices satisfies T(H) ≥ (ek−o(1))n!/2e(H), and in fact, for n odd, R(H) ≥ (ek−o(1))n!/2e(H).

In a Markov chain started at a state x, the hitting time τ(y) is the first time that the chain reaches another state y. We study the probability $\mathbb{P}_x(\tau(y) = t)$ that the first visit to y occurs precisely at a given time t. Informally speaking, the event that a new state is visited at a large time t may be considered a ‘surprise’. We prove the following three bounds.

• • In any Markov chain with n states, $\mathbb{P}_x(\tau(y) = t) \le {n}/{t}$.

• • In a reversible chain with n states, $\mathbb{P}_x(\tau(y) = t) \le {\sqrt{2n}}/{t}$ for $t \ge 4n + 4$.

• • For random walk on a simple graph with n ≥ 2 vertices, $\mathbb{P}_x(\tau(y) = t) \le 4e \log(n)/t$.

To prove the bound for random walk on graphs, we establish the following estimate conjectured by Aldous, Ding and Oveis-Gharan (private communication): for random walk on an n-vertex graph, for every initial vertex x,

$$ \sum_y \biggl( \sup_{t \ge 0} p^t(x, y) \biggr) = O(\log n). $$

Due to a calculation error, the constant in the main theorem is not $80 \sqrt{k\log k}$ but $80\sqrt{k} \log k$. The error was discovered by Xizhi Liu.

For a new discussion on the limit of the method used in this paper see the revised arXiv version of the paper.

We study the distribution of products of conjugacy classes in finite simple groups, obtaining effective two-step mixing results, which give rise to an approximation to a conjecture of Thompson.

Our results, combined with work of Gowers and Viola, also lead to the solution of recent conjectures they posed on interleaved products and related complexity lower bounds, extending their work on the groups SL(2, q) to all (non-abelian) finite simple groups.

In particular it follows that, if G is a finite simple group, and A, B ⊆ Gt for t ⩾ 2 are subsets of fixed positive densities, then, as a = (a1, . . ., at) ∈ A and b = (b1, . . ., bt) ∈ B are chosen uniformly, the interleaved product a • b:=a1b1 . . . atbt is almost uniform on G (with quantitative estimates) with respect to the ℓ∞-norm.

It also follows that the communication complexity of an old decision problem related to interleaved products of a, b ∈ Gt is at least Ω(t log |G|) when G is a finite simple group of Lie type of bounded rank, and at least Ω(t log log |G|) when G is any finite simple group. Both these bounds are best possible.

We study the lower tail large deviation problem for subgraph counts in a random graph. Let XH denote the number of copies of H in an Erdős–Rényi random graph $\mathcal{G}(n,p)$. We are interested in estimating the lower tail probability $\mathbb{P}(X_H \le (1-\delta) \mathbb{E} X_H)$ for fixed 0 < δ < 1.

Thanks to the results of Chatterjee, Dembo and Varadhan, this large deviation problem has been reduced to a natural variational problem over graphons, at least for p ≥ n−αH (and conjecturally for a larger range of p). We study this variational problem and provide a partial characterization of the so-called ‘replica symmetric’ phase. Informally, our main result says that for every H, and 0 < δ < δH for some δH > 0, as p → 0 slowly, the main contribution to the lower tail probability comes from Erdős–Rényi random graphs with a uniformly tilted edge density. On the other hand, this is false for non-bipartite H and δ close to 1.

We consider the problem of minimizing the number of triangles in a graph of given order and size, and describe the asymptotic structure of extremal graphs. This is achieved by characterizing the set of flag algebra homomorphisms that minimize the triangle density.

In my paper [1], a normalization factor of |G|−1 was missing in the statements of Theorem 2.4, Theorem 2.6 and Corollary 2.7.