We provide evidence for this conclusion: given a finite Galois cover $f:X\rightarrow \mathbb{P}_{\mathbb{Q}}^{1}$ of group $G$, almost all (in a density sense) realizations of $G$ over $\mathbb{Q}$ do not occur as specializations of $f$. We show that this holds if the number of branch points of $f$ is sufficiently large, under the abc-conjecture and, possibly, the lower bound predicted by the Malle conjecture for the number of Galois extensions of $\mathbb{Q}$ of given group and bounded discriminant. This widely extends a result of Granville on the lack of $\mathbb{Q}$-rational points on quadratic twists of hyperelliptic curves over $\mathbb{Q}$ with large genus, under the abc-conjecture (a diophantine reformulation of the case $G=\mathbb{Z}/2\mathbb{Z}$ of our result). As a further evidence, we exhibit a few finite groups $G$ for which the above conclusion holds unconditionally for almost all covers of $\mathbb{P}_{\mathbb{Q}}^{1}$ of group $G$. We also introduce a local–global principle for specializations of Galois covers $f:X\rightarrow \mathbb{P}_{\mathbb{Q}}^{1}$ and show that it often fails if $f$ has abelian Galois group and sufficiently many branch points, under the abc-conjecture. On the one hand, such a local–global conclusion underscores the ‘smallness’ of the specialization set of a Galois cover of $\mathbb{P}_{\mathbb{Q}}^{1}$. On the other hand, it allows to generate conditionally ‘many’ curves over $\mathbb{Q}$ failing the Hasse principle, thus generalizing a recent result of Clark and Watson devoted to the hyperelliptic case.

The germ of the universal isomonodromic deformation of a logarithmic connection on a stable $n$-pointed genus $g$ curve always exists in the analytic category. The first part of this article investigates under which conditions it is the analytic germification of an algebraic isomonodromic deformation. Up to some minor technical conditions, this turns out to be the case if and only if the monodromy of the connection has finite orbit under the action of the mapping class group. The second part of this work studies the dynamics of this action in the particular case of reducible rank 2 representations and genus $g>0$, allowing to classify all finite orbits. Both of these results extend recent ones concerning the genus 0 case.

Let ${\mathcal{F}}_{g}^{\mathbf{N}}$ be the moduli space of polarized Nikulin surfaces $(Y,H)$ of genus $g$ and let ${\mathcal{P}}_{g}^{\mathbf{N}}$ be the moduli of triples $(Y,H,C)$, with $C\in |H|$ a smooth curve. We study the natural map $\unicode[STIX]{x1D712}_{g}:{\mathcal{P}}_{g}^{\mathbf{N}}\rightarrow {\mathcal{R}}_{g}$, where ${\mathcal{R}}_{g}$ is the moduli space of Prym curves of genus $g$. We prove that it is generically injective on every irreducible component, with a few exceptions in low genus. This gives a complete picture of the map $\unicode[STIX]{x1D712}_{g}$ and confirms some striking analogies between it and the Mukai map $m_{g}:{\mathcal{P}}_{g}\rightarrow {\mathcal{M}}_{g}$ for moduli of triples $(Y,H,C)$, where $(Y,H)$ is any genus $g$ polarized $K3$ surface. The proof is by degeneration to boundary points of a partial compactification of ${\mathcal{F}}_{g}^{\mathbf{N}}$. These represent the union of two surfaces with four even nodes and effective anticanonical class, which we call half Nikulin surfaces. The use of this degeneration is new with respect to previous techniques.

Let $F$ be a non-archimedean local field of residual characteristic $p$, $\ell \neq p$ be a prime number, and $\text{W}_{F}$ the Weil group of $F$. We classify equivalence classes of $\text{W}_{F}$-semisimple Deligne $\ell$-modular representations of $\text{W}_{F}$ in terms of irreducible $\ell$-modular representations of $\text{W}_{F}$, and extend constructions of Artin–Deligne local constants to this setting. Finally, we define a variant of the $\ell$-modular local Langlands correspondence which satisfies a preservation of local constants statement for pairs of generic representations.

Let $A$ be the product of an abelian variety and a torus defined over a number field $K$. Fix some prime number $\ell$. If $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FC}\in A(K)$ is a point of infinite order, we consider the set of primes $\mathfrak{p}$ of $K$ such that the reduction $(\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FC}\hspace{0.2em}{\rm mod}\hspace{0.2em}\mathfrak{p})$ is well-defined and has order coprime to $\ell$. This set admits a natural density. By refining the method of Jones and Rouse [Galois theory of iterated endomorphisms, Proc. Lond. Math. Soc. (3)100(3) (2010), 763–794. Appendix A by Jeffrey D. Achter], we can express the density as an $\ell$-adic integral without requiring any assumption. We also prove that the density is always a rational number whose denominator (up to powers of $\ell$) is uniformly bounded in a very strong sense. For elliptic curves, we describe a strategy for computing the density which covers every possible case.

We provide a class of separable II1 factors $M$ whose central sequence algebra is not the ‘tail’ algebra associated with any decreasing sequence of von Neumann subalgebras of $M$. This settles a question of McDuff [On residual sequences in a II1 factor, J. Lond. Math. Soc. (2) (1971), 273–280].

We prove the integral Hodge conjecture for all 3-folds $X$ of Kodaira dimension zero with $H^{0}(X,K_{X})$ not zero. This generalizes earlier results of Voisin and Grabowski. The assumption is sharp, in view of counterexamples by Benoist and Ottem. We also prove similar results on the integral Tate conjecture. For example, the integral Tate conjecture holds for abelian 3-folds in any characteristic.

We construct a separately continuous function $e:E\times K\rightarrow \{0,1\}$ on the product of a Baire space $E$ and a compact space $K$ such that no restriction of $e$ to any non-meagre Borel set in $E\times K$ is continuous. The function $e$ has no points of joint continuity, and, hence, it provides a negative solution of Talagrand’s problem in Talagrand [Espaces de Baire et espaces de Namioka, Math. Ann.270 (1985), 159–164].

We prove that the class of reflexive asymptotic-$c_{0}$ Banach spaces is coarsely rigid, meaning that if a Banach space $X$ coarsely embeds into a reflexive asymptotic-$c_{0}$ space $Y$, then $X$ is also reflexive and asymptotic-$c_{0}$. In order to achieve this result, we provide a purely metric characterization of this class of Banach spaces. This metric characterization takes the form of a concentration inequality for Lipschitz maps on the Hamming graphs, which is rigid under coarse embeddings. Using an example of a quasi-reflexive asymptotic-$c_{0}$ space, we show that this concentration inequality is not equivalent to the non-equi-coarse embeddability of the Hamming graphs.