§1. Introduction and notation. In [1] and [2], Besicovitch demonstrated that there exist plane sets of measure zero containing line segments (and indeed entire lines) in all directions in the plane. It is natural to ask about the existence of analogous sets in Euclidean spaces of higher dimensions, and in [3] we defined an (n, k)-Besicovitch set to be a subset A of Rn, of n-dimensional Lebesgue measure zero, such that for each k-dimensional subspace Π of Rn, some translate of Π intersects A in a set of positive k-dimensional measure. (Thus Besicovitch's original constructions were for (2,1)-Besicovitch sets.) Recently, Marstrand [5] has shown (by approximating to sets by unions of cubes) that no (3, 2)-Besicovitch sets exist, and simultaneously the author [3] proved using Fourier transform methods that (n, k)- Bsicovitch sets cannot exist if k > ½n.

Helly's theorem asserts that if W is a family of compact convex sets in a j-dimensional linear space, and if any j + 1 members of ℱ have a non-empty intersection, then there is a point common to all members of ℱ. If one attempts to generalise this result to the case when ℱ consists of sets which are expressible as the union of at most n disjoint compact convex sets then, in general, one finds that there is no number h(n, j) such that if any h(n, j) members of ℱ have a non-empty intersection, then there is a point common to all members of ℱ. The difficulty lies in the fact that, in general, the intersections of members of ℱ are more complicated in structure than are the members of ℱ.

One of the problems of solid state physics is to explain why the atoms of certain elements (such as iron) arrange themselves in a body-centred cubic lattice, rather than in the much denser face-centred cubic lattice packing [8]. Recently, we discovered the geometric significance of these body-centred lattice packings: they are fragile in the sense that, assuming we have a sphere of fixed radius at each lattice point, any perturbation which does not alter the set of nearest neighbours of any sphere results in a denser configuration [3]. In other words, in-these packings it is the density of the interstitial void between the spheres that is being maximized. This fact might seem only to deepen the mystery of why such arrangements ever appear in nature at all. Our purpose here is to demonstrate that these lattice packings are in fact quite “stable”, provided one seeks a more subtle form of stability, one prompted by physical rather than purely geometrical considerations. More precisely, we will show for those lattices which possess a high degree of symmetry–and for the bodycentred cubic lattice in particular–that the EPSTEIN ZETA FUNCTION of the lattice, ∑ |r|-2s (where |r| is the distance of the r-th lattice point from the origin and s is any fixed number greater than n/2), is locally minimized, in the sense that, any lattice, obtained by a perturbation which does not alter the set of nearest neighbours of any lattice point, has an Epstein zeta function of larger value, for any s > n/2.

We say that a set of closed circular discs of radii r1r2, …, all lying in a Euclidean plane, is saturated if and only if r = inf ri > 0 and any circle of radius r has at least one point in common with a circle of the set. For any set X we use α(X) to denote the area of X. If X denotes the point set union of the discs and X(k) the part of X inside the disc whose centre is the origin and radius k then by the lower density of the covering we mean . The problem is to find the exact lower bound of the lower density for any saturated set of circles. We show that it is φ/(6√3) provided the circles are disjoint. The general case, when they may overlap, remains unsolved.

Voronoĭ conjectured that every parallelotope is affinely equivalent to a Voronoĭ polytope. For some m, a parallelotope is defined by a set of m facet vectors pi, and defines a set of m lattice vectors ti, for 1≤i≤m. It is shown that Voronoĭ's conjecture is true for an n-dimensional parallelotope P if and only if there exist scalars γi, and a positive definite n × n matrix Q such that γipi = Qti for each i. In this case, the quadratic form f(x) = xTQx is the metric form of P.

If G is a topological group then we can think of G acting on itself by multiplying on the left. We would like to know when this action has the property that whenever g and h are distinct elements of G, then the element xg does not get arbitrarily close to xh as x varies in G. It is natural to say that this is the case if {(xg, xh): x∈G} is separated from the diagonal of G × G by a uniform neighbourhood of the diagonal.

Let D(f) denote the discriminant of a binary cubic form

having integral coefficients. We restrict ourselves to forms with D(f) ≠ 0, and further (as a matter of convenience) to forms which are irreducible in the rational field. It is a problem of some interest, in connection with the approximation properties of transcendental numbers, to estimate the sum

as H→∞, where ‖f‖ = max(|a|, |b|, |c|, |d|). Since |D(f)| ≪ H4 when ‖f‖ < H, there is the trivial lower bound

It is natural to say that a set S in a metric space has infinite generalized Hausdorff dimension if there is no Hausdorff measure Λh with Λh(S) = 0. In this note we study such sets. We first need some definitions.

We say that h(x) is a Hausdorff measure function if it satisfies the conditions:

We study the average value of the divisor function $\unicode[STIX]{x1D70F}(n)$ for $n\leqslant x$ with $n\equiv a~\text{mod}~q$ . The divisor function is known to be evenly distributed over arithmetic progressions for all $q$ that are a little smaller than $x^{2/3}$ . We show how to go past this barrier when $q=p^{k}$ for odd primes $p$ and any fixed integer $k\geqslant 7$ .

We establish lower bounds for (i) the numbers of positive and negative terms and (ii) the number of sign changes in the sequence of Fourier coefficients at squarefree integers of a half-integral weight modular Hecke eigenform.

The main purpose of this article is to outline for non-compact Riemann surfaces the development of a theory of T-invariant algebras similar to that developed by T. W. Gamelin [7] in the case of the plane. The main idea is to introduce, using the global local uniformizer of R. C. Gunning and R. Narashimhan, a Cauchy transform operator for the Riemann surface which operates on measures and solves an inhomogeneous -equation. This, in turn, can be used, analogously to the Cauchy transform on the plane, to develop meromorphic (rational) approximation theory. We sketch the path of the development but omit most of the details when they are very much similar to the planar case. Our presentation follows closely that of [7]. The original motivation for this study was to obtain more information on Gleason parts useful in the study of Carleman (tangential) approximation theory (see [5]).

In this paper we are concerned with upper bounds for the sums

where

and Δ2(n) is written simply as Δ(n). These functions were introduced by Hooley [4] and applied in a novel way to problems related to Waring's, and in Diophantine approximation. Thus Hooley deduced from his result about S2(x) that for any irrational θ, real γ, and fixed ε > 0, the inequality

holds for infinitely many n. His result for S3(x) led to a proof that

where r8(n) denotes the number of representations of n as the sum of eight positive cubes.

In [3] the authors introduced the notion of a completely 0-simple semigroup of quotients. This definition has since been extended to the class of all semigroups giving a definition of semigroups of quotients which may be regarded as an analogue of the classical ring of quotients. When Q is a semigroup of quotients of a semigroup S, we also say that S is an order in Q.

Assuming the Riemann Hypothesis, Soundararajan [Ann. of Math. (2) 170 (2009), 981–993] showed that $\int _{0}^{T}|\unicode[STIX]{x1D701}(1/2+\text{i}t)|^{2k}\ll T(\log T)^{k^{2}+\unicode[STIX]{x1D716}}$. His method was used by Chandee [Q. J. Math.62 (2011), 545–572] to obtain upper bounds for shifted moments of the Riemann Zeta function. Building on these ideas of Chandee and Soundararajan, we obtain, conditionally, upper bounds for shifted moments of Dirichlet $L$-functions which allow us to derive upper bounds for moments of theta functions.

For α≥0 and β≥0 we denote by K (α, β) the Kaplan classes of functions f analytic and non-zero in the open unit disk U = {z: |z| < 1} such that f ∈ K(α, β), if, and only if, for θ1 < θ2 < θ1 + 2π and 0 < r < 1,

Where

Many classical geometric inequalities on functionals of convex bodies depend on the dimension of the ambient space. We show that this dimension dependence may often be replaced (totally or partially) by different symmetry measures of the convex body. Since these coefficients are bounded by the dimension but possibly smaller, our inequalities sharpen the original ones. Since they can often be computed efficiently, the improved bounds may also be used to obtain better bounds in approximation algorithms.

The isometries of the space of convex bodies of Ed with respect to the symmetric-difference metric are precisely the mappings generated by measurepreserving affinities of Ed.

We show that for $p\geqslant 1$, the $p$th moment of suprema of linear combinations of independent centered random variables are comparable with the sum of the first moment and the weak $p$th moment provided that $2q$th and $q$th integral moments of these variables are comparable for all $q\geqslant 2$. The latest condition turns out to be necessary in the independent and identically distributed case.

The effects on a boundary layer of thickness O(LR−1/2) (where L is a typical streamwise lengthscale, and R is the Reynolds number) of a small unsteady hump at the wall is considered. The hump is of height O(LR−5/8) and length O(LR−3/8), and outside the boundary layer is potential flow. Three different regimes of unsteadiness parameter are considered, leading to a description of the flow over the complete spectrum for this size of excrescence.

Let

and A1, A2, …, An, a1, a2, …, an be positive integers. We consider the related integrals

and