The purpose of this paper is to extend the explicit geometric evaluation of semisimple orbital integrals for smooth kernels for the Casimir operator obtained by the first author to the case of kernels for arbitrary elements in the center of the enveloping algebra.

A celebrated result by Orlov states that any fully faithful exact functor between the bounded derived categories of coherent sheaves on smooth projective varieties is of geometric origin, i.e. it is a Fourier–Mukai functor. In this paper we prove that any smooth projective variety of dimension $\ge 3$ equipped with a tilting bundle can serve as the source variety of a non-Fourier–Mukai functor between smooth projective schemes.

Let $ {\mathbb {C}}^{n+1}_o$ denote the germ of $ {\mathbb {C}}^{n+1}$ at the origin. Let $V$ be a hypersurface germ in $ {\mathbb {C}}^{n+1}_o$ and $W$ a deformation of $V$ over $ {\mathbb {C}}_{o}^{m}$. Under the hypothesis that $W$ is a Newton non-degenerate deformation, in this article we prove that $W$ is a $\mu$-constant deformation if and only if $W$ admits a simultaneous embedded resolution. This result gives a lot of information about $W$, for example, the topological triviality of the family $W$ and the fact that the natural morphism $(\operatorname {W( {\mathbb {C}}_{o})}_{m})_{{\rm red}}\rightarrow {\mathbb {C}}_{o}$ is flat, where $\operatorname {W( {\mathbb {C}}_{o})}_{m}$ is the relative space of $m$-jets. On the way to the proof of our main result, we give a complete answer to a question of Arnold on the monotonicity of Newton numbers in the case of convenient Newton polyhedra.

In this paper, we prove the Fukui–Kurdyka–Paunescu conjecture, which says that sub-analytic arc-analytic bi-Lipschitz homeomorphisms preserve the multiplicities of real analytic sets. We also prove several other results on the invariance of the multiplicity (respectively, degree) of real and complex analytic (respectively, algebraic) sets. For instance, still in the real case, we prove a global version of the Fukui–Kurdyka–Paunescu conjecture. In the complex case, one of the results that we prove is the following: if $(X,0)\subset (\mathbb {C}^{n},0)$, $(Y,0)\subset (\mathbb {C}^{m},0)$ are germs of analytic sets and $h\colon (X,0)\to (Y,0)$ is a semi-bi-Lipschitz homeomorphism whose graph is a complex analytic set, then the germs $(X,0)$ and $(Y,0)$ have the same multiplicity. One of the results that we prove in the global case is the following: if $X\subset \mathbb {C}^{n}$, $Y\subset \mathbb {C}^{m}$ are algebraic sets and $\phi \colon X\to Y$ is a semi-algebraic semi-bi-Lipschitz homeomorphism such that the closure of its graph in $\mathbb {P}^{n+m}(\mathbb {C})$ is an orientable homological cycle, then ${\rm deg}(X)={\rm deg}(Y)$.

In 1977, Gauduchon proved that on every compact hermitian manifold $(X, \omega )$ there exists a conformally equivalent hermitian metric $\omega _\mathrm {G}$ which satisfies $\mathrm {dd}^{\mathrm {c}} \omega _\mathrm {G}^{n-1} = 0$. In this note, we extend this result to irreducible compact singular hermitian varieties which admit a smoothing.

The main goal of this paper is to construct a compactification of the moduli space of degree $d \geqslant 5$ surfaces in $\mathbb {P}^{3}_{{{\mathbb {C}}}}$, i.e. a parameter space whose interior points correspond to (equivalence classes of) smooth surfaces in $\mathbb {P}^{3}$ and whose boundary points correspond to degenerations of such surfaces. We consider a divisor $D$ on a Fano variety $Z$ as a pair $(Z, D)$ satisfying certain properties. We find a modular compactification of such pairs and, in the case of $Z = {{\mathbb {P}}}^{3}$ and $D$ a surface, use their properties to classify the pairs on the boundary of the moduli space.

We conjecture that the exceptional set in Manin's conjecture has an explicit geometric description. Our proposal includes the rational point contributions from any generically finite map with larger geometric invariants. We prove that this set is contained in a thin subset of rational points, verifying that there is no counterexample to Manin's conjecture which arises from an incompatibility of geometric invariants.

Campana introduced the class of special varieties as the varieties admitting no Bogomolov sheaves, i.e. rank-one coherent subsheaves of maximal Kodaira dimension in some exterior power of the cotangent bundle. Campana raised the question of whether one can replace the Kodaira dimension by the numerical dimension in this characterization. We answer partially this question showing that a projective manifold admitting a rank-one coherent subsheaf of the cotangent bundle with numerical dimension one is not special. We also establish the analytic characterization with the non-existence of Zariski dense entire curve and the arithmetic version with non-potential density in the (split) function field setting. Finally, we conclude with a few comments for higher codimensional foliations which may provide some evidence towards a generalization of the aforementioned results.