Suppose that $F/F^{+}$ is a CM extension of number fields in which the prime $p$ splits completely and every other prime is unramified. Fix a place $w|p$ of $F$. Suppose that $\overline{r}:\operatorname{Gal}(\overline{F}/F)\rightarrow \text{GL}_{3}(\overline{\mathbb{F}}_{p})$ is a continuous irreducible Galois representation such that $\overline{r}|_{\operatorname{Gal}(\overline{F}_{w}/F_{w})}$ is upper-triangular, maximally non-split, and generic. If $\overline{r}$ is automorphic, and some suitable technical conditions hold, we show that $\overline{r}|_{\operatorname{Gal}(\overline{F}_{w}/F_{w})}$ can be recovered from the $\text{GL}_{3}(F_{w})$-action on a space of mod $p$ automorphic forms on a compact unitary group. On the way we prove results about weights in Serre’s conjecture for $\overline{r}$, show the existence of an ordinary lifting of $\overline{r}$, and prove the freeness of certain Taylor–Wiles patched modules in this context. We also show the existence of many Galois representations $\overline{r}$ to which our main theorem applies.

For any odd prime $\ell$, let $h_{\ell }(-d)$ denote the $\ell$-part of the class number of the imaginary quadratic field $\mathbb{Q}(\sqrt{-d})$. Nontrivial pointwise upper bounds are known only for $\ell =3$; nontrivial upper bounds for averages of $h_{\ell }(-d)$ have previously been known only for $\ell =3,5$. In this paper we prove nontrivial upper bounds for the average of $h_{\ell }(-d)$ for all primes $\ell \geqslant 7$, as well as nontrivial upper bounds for certain higher moments for all primes $\ell \geqslant 3$.

Let $A\rightarrow B$ be a morphism of Artin local rings with the same embedding dimension. We prove that any $A$ -flat $B$ -module is $B$ -flat. This freeness criterion was conjectured by de Smit in 1997 and improves Diamond’s criterion [The Taylor–Wiles construction and multiplicity one, Invent. Math. 128 (1997), 379–391, Theorem 2.1]. We also prove that if there is a nonzero $A$ -flat $B$ -module, then $A\rightarrow B$ is flat and is a relative complete intersection. Then we explain how this result allows one to simplify Wiles’s proof of Fermat’s last theorem: we do not need the so-called ‘Taylor–Wiles systems’ any more.

We develop a theory of unbounded derived categories of quasi-coherent sheaves on algebraic stacks. In particular, we show that these categories are compactly generated by perfect complexes for stacks that either have finite stabilizers or are local quotient stacks. We also extend Toën and Antieau–Gepner’s results on derived Azumaya algebras and compact generation of sheaves on linear categories from derived schemes to derived Deligne–Mumford stacks. These are all consequences of our main theorem: compact generation of a presheaf of triangulated categories on an algebraic stack is local for the quasi-finite flat topology.

We study various measures of irrationality for hypersurfaces of large degree in projective space and other varieties. These include the least degree of a rational covering of projective space, and the minimal gonality of a covering family of curves. The theme is that positivity properties of canonical bundles lead to lower bounds on these invariants. In particular, we prove that if $X\subseteq \mathbf{P}^{n+1}$ is a very general smooth hypersurface of dimension $n$ and degree $d\geqslant 2n+1$, then any dominant rational mapping $f:X{\dashrightarrow}\mathbf{P}^{n}$ must have degree at least $d-1$. We also propose a number of open problems, and we show how our methods lead to simple new proofs of results of Ran and Beheshti–Eisenbud concerning varieties of multi-secant lines.

We use Hamiltonian Floer theory to recover and generalize a classic rigidity theorem of Ekeland and Lasry. That theorem can be rephrased as an assertion about the existence of multiple closed Reeb orbits for certain tight contact forms on the sphere that are close, in a suitable sense, to the standard contact form. We first generalize this result to Reeb flows of contact forms on prequantization spaces that are suitably close to Boothby–Wang forms. We then establish, under an additional nondegeneracy assumption, the same rigidity phenomenon for Reeb flows on any closed contact manifold. A natural obstruction to obtaining sharp multiplicity results for closed Reeb orbits is the possible existence of fast closed orbits. To complement the existence results established here, we also show that the existence of such fast orbits cannot be precluded by any condition which is invariant under contactomorphisms, even for nearby contact forms.