In an earlier paper (3) the author developed a theory of the neighbourhoods of a local domain, in which the concept of the first neighbourhood ring played a central role. This notion has since proved useful in connexion with certain one-dimensional problems, but it has emerged, in the process, that a considerable advantage would be gained if the theory could be freed from the assumption that the basic ring was to be without zero-divisors. This parallels the situation in the geometry of plane curves, where it is desirable, so far as is possible, that results and methods should apply with equal facility to reducible as well as to irreducible curves. Accordingly Part I of the present paper is devoted to a fresh account of the first neighbourhood ring from a more general standpoint than that used previously. Besides the greater generality thus obtained, the theory is extended by the addition of some new results. Furthermore, the proof of one of the main results of the original paper ((3), Theorem 10) has been considerably simplified. Of course, the ideas of (3) reappear here in a modified form, but, to spare the reader the irritating fragmentation of the subject which would otherwise be necessary, the revised account has been made independent of the earlier one. To this extent, Part I is self-contained.

The unitary irreducible representations on a Hilbert space of the universal covering group G of the 3 + 2 deSitter group are determined, using Harish-Chandra's theory of semi-simple Lie groups. These irreducible representations of G are reduced out with respect to representations of the universal covering group K of the direct product R2 × R3 of a two-dimensional and a three-dimensional rotation group. It is convenient to distinguish between two types of irreducible representations of G, called ‘irreducible case’ and ‘reducible case’ representations. The former are more numerous in a certain sense, while the latter may be regarded as special cases.

Let (j, µ) be an irreducible unitary representation of K, where j denotes the (ray) representation of R3 involved (2j is a non-negative integer) and µ that of R2 (µ is a real number). Then in an ‘irreducible case’ representation of G, each (j, µ) that occurs at all occurs with multiplicity j + ½ if 2j is odd, or j + ½ ± ½ if 2j is even. In a ‘reducible case’ representation of G, the multiplicity of the (j, µ)'s is smaller, and may even be 1 for all (j, µ)'s which occur. (The analogous problem for the 4 + 1 deSitter group has been solved by L. H. Thomas by reducing out the irreducible representations of the whole group with respect to those of the four-dimensional rotation group R4. However, each irreducible representation of the 4 + 1 deSitter group contains any irreducible representation of R4 at most once, so that the more general Harish-Chandra theory is not then needed to carry out the classification.)

In an irreducible representation of G, only those irreducible representations (j, µ) of K may occur for which the fractional part of µ is fixed throughout the representation of G. This fractional part of µ helps to characterize the representations of G, as do the two polynomials in the infinitesimal elements, one of degree 2 and the other of degree 4, which generate all those polynomials which have the property of commuting with all members of the Lie algebra of G.

Representations of the inhomogeneous Lorentz group may be obtained from representations of G by the process of contraction, as defined by Inonu and Wigner, just as representations of the former group may in turn be contracted to obtain representations of the Galilei group.

The theory of distributions, systematized by L. Schwartz (3), has many applications in pure mathematics and physics. A number of different approaches to the theory are possible. Schwartz's own account requires for its comprehension a familiarity with the topology of general spaces. I give in this note another approach to the theory based on a process of integration of the Stieltjes type.

This paper is concerned with the properties of precompact and compact linear operators from a locally convex Hausdorff space into itself, the field of scalars being the complex number field.

The Riesz–Schauder theory for the equations

where T is a compact linear operator from the Bacach space into itself, is well known (see, for example, Banach(1), Chapter 10, §2) and has been extended to the more general setting of locally convx Hausdorff spaces by Leray (4). In particular, the ‘Fredholm alternative theorem’ remains valid.

The comparison theorem is an algebraic theorem, which corresponds to the following topological situation. A map between two fibre spaces induces a homomorphism between the two corresponding spectral sequences relating the homologies of the base, fibre and fibre space; if the map induces an isomorphism on any two of these quantities, then it also does on the third. J. C. Moore (l) proved the theorem using a mapping cylinder, which requires that the spectral sequences arise from filtered differential groups. The present proof assumes only the existence of the spectral sequences from the E2 terms onwards. Moreover, we generalize the theorem, assuming that the homomorphisms on the two given quantities are isomorphic only up to given dimensions, and deducing the same for the third quantity. For algebraic translucence we use a simpler hypothesis (property (iii)) than Moore's concerning the E2 terms. However, if his hypothesis is assumed, together with the existence of E1 terms, then his theorem can be deduced as a corollary. The analogous result for cohomology is similar, and is stated at the end.

Introduction. Let be the complex separable Hilbert space. We say that the closed linear operator T, with domain dense in. , is represented by the infinite matrix H if T is the operator T˜1(H) defined† by H (with respect to some complete orthonormal set). We define an (nJ)-matrix as a Hermitian matrix H = [hij]i, j ≥ 1 for which hij = 0 when i − j > n and hij ╪ 0 when i − j = n. (Thus a Jacobi matrix is a (1J)-matrix.) If, in addition, hij = 0 when 0 < i − j < n, we call H an (nJ ┴)-matrix.

A number of authors ((2), (4), (5)) have recently considered problems relating to the convergence of specified sequences of partial sums of a gap Taylor series on its circle of convergence. For convenience in stating such results we shall standardize the Taylor series as Σanzn with the unit circle as circle of convergence, and denote the partial sums and the sum function by sn(z) and f(z) respectively. Following the notation of ((4)) and (5) we shall define φ(x) for 0 ≤ x < ∞ to be the least concave majorant of log (|an| + 2). One of the recent results in this field ((5), Theorem 1, and see also (2)) may be stated as

THEOREM A. Suppose that f(z) is regular on an arc α < arg z < β. Suppose also that there are sequences of integers nk, Nk → ∞ such that Nk – nk → ∞ and am = 0 if nk < m < Nk.

Consider a Markov chain with an enumerable infinity of states, labelled 0, 1, 2, …, whose one-step transition probabilities pij are independent of time. Then

I write

and, departing slightly from the usual convention,

Then it is known ((1), pp. 324–34, or (6)) that the limits πij always exist, and that

1. Introduction. Let 0 < λ < 1 and remove from the closed unit interval the open interval of length λ concentric with the unit interval. From each of the two remaining closed intervals of length ½(1 − λ) remove the concentric open interval of length ½λ(1 − λ). From each of the four remaining closed intervals of length ¼λ(1 − λ)2 remove the concentric open interval of length ¼λ(l − λ)2, etc. The remaining set is a perfect non-dense set of Lebesgue measure zero and is the Cantor set for λ = ⅓. Let Tλr be the Cartesian product of this set with the set similar to it obtained by magnifying it by a factor r > 0. Letting L be Carathéodory linear measure (1) and letting G be Gillespie linear square(2), Randolph(3) has established the following relations:

The canonical form of the Riemann tensor is found for certain non-flat empty space-times. Some invariant physical properties of these space-times are investigated. The status of Mach's principle in general relativity theory is briefly discussed in the light of these examples.

Consider a topological n–sphere Sn, where n ≥ 1. By a commutative product I mean a continuous function f: Sn × Sn → Sn such that

In the integral

the functions g(z), f(z, α) are analytic functions of their arguments, and N is a large positive parameter. When N tends to ∞, asymptotic expansions can usually be found by the method of steepest descents, which shows that the principal contributions arise from the saddle points, i.e. the values of z at which ∂f/∂z = 0. The position of the saddle points varies with α, and if for some a (say α = 0) two saddle points coincide (say at z = 0) the ordinary method of steepest descents gives expansions which are not uniformly valid for small α. In the present paper we consider this case of two nearly coincident saddle points and construct uniform expansions as follows. A new complex variable u is introduced by the implicit relation

where the parameters ζ(α), A(α) are determined explicitly from the condition that the (u, z) transformation is uniformly regular near z = 0, α = 0 (see § 2 below). We show that with these values of the parameters there is one branch of the transformation which is uniformly regular. By taking u on this branch as a new variable of integration we obtain for the integral uniformly asymptotic expansions of the form

where Ai and Ai′ are the Airy function and its derivative respectively, and A(α), ζ(α) are the parameters in the transformation. The application to Bessel functions of large order is briefly described.

The Yang-Feldman formalism vising the Feynman-like Green's functions is set up. The corresponding free fields have non-trivial commutation relations and contain information about the scattering. S-matrix elements are simply the matrix elements of anti-normal products of the field φF′(x). These are evaluated, and they give directly expressions used in the theory of causality and dispersion relations. It is possible to formulate field theory in a form in which the fields obey free field equations and the effects of interaction are contained in their commutation relations.

1. Introduction. In this note Abel-type summability methods (Aλ) are defined and some of their properties investigated.

Let

and let {sn} be any sequence of numbers. If

is convergent for all x in the open interval (0,1) and tends to a finite limit s as x → 1 in (0,1), we shall say that the sequence is Aλ-convergent to s and write sn → s (Aλ;). The A0 method is the ordinary Abel method.

This paper represents a new method for obtaining an asymptotic representation for integrals of the form when p is large. It is shown that if f(x) satisfies certain conditions this representation is also convergent. Numerical calculations seem to show that the first term of the representation gives a close approximation to the value of the integral for a wide range of values of p.

In a recent paper (1) I have studied tangential properties of sets of infinite measure. This note represents a complementary study of sets and, in particular of arcs, of σ-finite linear measure. Suppose we have a linearly measurable set E of infinite measure that can be represented as the sum of sets of finite measure. Write En = En, 1 + En, 2, where En, 1 is the set of regular points of En and En, 2 that of irregular ones. The set F = ΣEn, 1 is a regular component of E and the set G = ΣEn, 2 an irregular one. A tangent toEn exists at almost all points of En, 1 and at almost no points of En, 2. Denote by Tn the set of all tangents to En and by T the sum-set ΣTn. T will be called a tangent-set to E. Lines of T are defined corresponding to almost all points of F and to the points of a subset of G of measure zero.

A method is described for finding the frequency functions of bivariate random variables which are the products or ratios of other bivariate random variables. If (ξ, n) are a pair of bivariate random variables with joint frequency function f(x, y) then the method depends upon the fact that the expectation of │ ξ │r–1│η│s–1 is related to the Mellin transform of f(x, y) in two dimensions. Knowing the expectation we can then recover the frequency function by means of the inverse Mellin transform. Some examples are given to illustrate the theory.

The boundary of a simply-connected plane domain in the simplest case is a Jordan curve, but in the general case it is of a very complicated nature. An interesting problem arises about the nature of the boundary, when we consider not a single domain but some extensive family of domains. The question is whether only exceptional domains of the family have a complicated boundary, the rest having simple ones.

A variational principle is obtained for the Boltzmann transport equation in the presence of a magnetic field and modified by boundaries, when the standard formulation of Kohler breaks down because of the lack of microscopic reversibility. The connexion with entropy production is discussed.

1. Introduction. The definition of the order of an integral function of one complex variable extends immediately to integral functions of several complex variables to give us their total order. In the case of integral functions of two complex variables, Lelong(5) has shown that the order on any analytic plane through the origin is equal to the total order except for an exceptional set of planes of exterior capacity 0 on which the order is less than the total order.