Let f be a modular form of weight k≥2 and level N, let K be a quadratic imaginary field and assume that there is a prime p exactly dividing N. Under certain arithmetic conditions on the level N and the field K, one can attach to this data a p-adic L-function Lp (f,K,s) , as done by Bertolini–Darmon–Iovita–Spieß in [Teitelbaum’s exceptional zero conjecture in the anticyclotomic setting, Amer. J. Math. 124 (2002), 411–449]. In the case of p being inert in K, this analytic function of a p-adic variable s vanishes in the critical range s=1,…,k−1 , and one may be interested in the values of its derivative in this range. We construct, for k≥4 , a Chow motive endowed with a distinguished collection of algebraic cycles which encode these values, via the p-adic Abel–Jacobi map. Our main result generalizes the result obtained by Iovita and Spieß in [Derivatives of p-adic L-functions, Heegner cycles and monodromy modules attached to modular forms, Invent. Math. 154 (2003), 333–384], which gives a similar formula for the central value s=k/2 . Even in this case our construction is different from the one found by Iovita and Spieß.

We derive a formula for Greenberg’s L-invariant of Tate twists of the symmetric sixth power of an ordinary non-CM cuspidal newform of weight ≥4, under some technical assumptions. This requires a ‘sufficiently rich’ Galois deformation of the symmetric cube, which we obtain from the symmetric cube lift to GSp(4)/Q of Ramakrishnan–Shahidi and the Hida theory of this group developed by Tilouine–Urban. The L-invariant is expressed in terms of derivatives of Frobenius eigenvalues varying in the Hida family. Our result suggests that one could compute Greenberg’s L-invariant of all symmetric powers by using appropriate functorial transfers and Hida theory on higher rank groups.

An abelian cover is a finite morphism X→Y of varieties which is the quotient map for a generically faithful action of a finite abelian group G. Abelian covers with Y smooth and X normal were studied in [R. Pardini, Abelian covers of algebraic varieties, J. Reine Angew. Math. 417 (1991), 191–213; MR 1103912(92g:14012)]. Here we study the non-normal case, assuming that X and Y are S2 varieties that have at worst normal crossings outside a subset of codimension greater than or equal to two. Special attention is paid to the case of ℤr2-covers of surfaces, which is used in [V. Alexeev and R. Pardini, Explicit compactifications of moduli spaces of Campedelli and Burniat surfaces, Preprint (2009), math.AG/arXiv:0901.4431] to construct explicitly compactifications of some components of the moduli space of surfaces of general type.

We give bounds for the Betti numbers of projective algebraic varieties in terms of their classes (degrees of dual varieties of successive hyperplane sections). We also give bounds for classes in terms of ramification volumes (mixed ramification degrees), sectional genus and, eventually, in terms of dimension, codimension and degree. For varieties whose degree is large with respect to codimension, we give sharp bounds for the above invariants and classify the varieties on the boundary, thus obtaining a generalization of Castelnuovo’s theory for curves to varieties of higher dimension.

In [M. Kontsevich and Y. Soibelman, Cohomological Hall algebra, exponential Hodge structures and motivic Donaldson–Thomas invariants, Preprint (2011), arXiv:1006.2706v2[math.AG]], the authors, in particular, associate to each finite quiver Q with a set of vertices I the so-called cohomological Hall algebra ℋ, which is ℤI≥0-graded. Its graded component ℋγ is defined as cohomology of the Artin moduli stack of representations with dimension vector γ. The product comes from natural correspondences which parameterize extensions of representations. In the case of a symmetric quiver, one can refine the grading to ℤI≥0×ℤ, and modify the product by a sign to get a super-commutative algebra (ℋ,⋆) (with parity induced by the ℤ-grading). It is conjectured in [M. Kontsevich and Y. Soibelman, Cohomological Hall algebra, exponential Hodge structures and motivic Donaldson–Thomas invariants, Preprint (2011), arXiv:1006.2706v2[math.AG]] that in this case the algebra (ℋ⊗ℚ,⋆) is free super-commutative generated by a ℤI≥0×ℤ-graded vector space of the form V =Vprim ⊗ℚ[x] , where x is a variable of bidegree (0,2)∈ℤI≥0×ℤ, and all the spaces ⨁ k∈ℤVprimγ,k, γ∈ℤI≥0. are finite-dimensional. In this paper we prove this conjecture (Theorem 1.1). We also prove some explicit bounds on pairs (γ,k) for which Vprimγ,k≠0 (Theorem 1.2). Passing to generating functions, we obtain the positivity result for quantum Donaldson–Thomas invariants, which was used by Mozgovoy to prove Kac’s conjecture for quivers with sufficiently many loops [S. Mozgovoy, Motivic Donaldson–Thomas invariants and Kac conjecture, Preprint (2011), arXiv:1103.2100v2[math.AG]]. Finally, we mention a connection with the paper of Reineke [M. Reineke, Degenerate cohomological Hall algebra and quantized Donaldson–Thomas invariants for m-loop quivers, Preprint (2011), arXiv:1102.3978v1[math.RT]].

We consider the Prym map from the space of double coverings of a curve of genus g with r branch points to the moduli space of abelian varieties. We prove that 𝒫:ℛg,r→𝒜δg−1+r/2 is generically injective if We also show that a very general Prym variety of dimension at least 4 is not isogenous to a Jacobian.

We introduce a strategy based on Kustin–Miller unprojection that allows us to construct many hundreds of Gorenstein codimension 4 ideals with 9×16 resolutions (that is, nine equations and sixteen first syzygies). Our two basic games are called Tom and Jerry; the main application is the biregular construction of most of the anticanonically polarised Mori Fano 3-folds of Altınok’s thesis. There are 115 cases whose numerical data (in effect, the Hilbert series) allow a Type I projection. In every case, at least one Tom and one Jerry construction works, providing at least two deformation families of quasismooth Fano 3-folds having the same numerics but different topology.

We construct an interesting family of connected graded domains of Gel’fand–Kirillov dimension 4, and show that the general member of this family is noetherian. The algebras we construct are Koszul and have global dimension 4. They fail to be Artin–Schelter Gorenstein, however, showing that a theorem of Zhang and Stephenson for dimension 3 algebras does not extend to dimension 4. The Auslander–Buchsbaum formula also fails to hold for these algebras. The algebras we construct are birational to ℙ2, and their existence disproves a conjecture of the first author and Stafford. The algebras can be obtained as global sections of a certain quasicoherent graded sheaf on ℙ1×ℙ1, and our key technique is to work with this sheaf. In contrast to all previously known examples of birationally commutative graded domains, the graded pieces of the sheaf fail to be ample in the sense of Van den Bergh. Our results thus require significantly new techniques.

In this paper we give a lower bound on the waist of the unit sphere of a uniformly convex normed space by using the localization technique in codimension greater than one and a strong version of the Borsuk–Ulam theorem. The tools used in this paper follow ideas of Gromov in [Isoperimetry of waists and concentration of maps, Geom. Funct. Anal. 13 (2003), 178–215] and we also include an independent proof of our main theorem which does not rely on Gromov’s waist of the sphere. Our waist inequality in codimension one recovers a version of the Gromov–Milman inequality in [Generalisation of the spherical isoperimetric inequality to uniformly convex Banach spaces, Compositio Math. 62 (1987), 263–282].

We construct a two-parameter family of actions ωk,a of the Lie algebra 𝔰𝔩(2,ℝ) by differential–difference operators on ℝN∖{0}. Here k is a multiplicity function for the Dunkl operators, and a>0 arises from the interpolation of the two 𝔰𝔩(2,ℝ) actions on the Weil representation of Mp(N,ℝ) and the minimal unitary representation of O(N+1,2). We prove that this action ωk,a lifts to a unitary representation of the universal covering of SL (2,ℝ) , and can even be extended to a holomorphic semigroup Ωk,a. In the k≡0 case, our semigroup generalizes the Hermite semigroup studied by R. Howe (a=2) and the Laguerre semigroup studied by the second author with G. Mano (a=1) . One boundary value of our semigroup Ωk,a provides us with (k,a) -generalized Fourier transforms ℱk,a, which include the Dunkl transform 𝒟k (a=2) and a new unitary operator ℋk  (a=1) , namely a Dunkl–Hankel transform. We establish the inversion formula, a generalization of the Plancherel theorem, the Hecke identity, the Bochner identity, and a Heisenberg uncertainty relation for ℱk,a. We also find kernel functions for Ωk,a and ℱk,a for a=1,2 in terms of Bessel functions and the Dunkl intertwining operator.