We prove that, for any prime ℓ and any even integer n, there are infinitely many exponents k for which appears as a Galois group over . This generalizes a result of Wiese from 2006, which inspired this paper.

This paper deals with criteria of algebraic independence for the derivatives of solutions of diagonal difference systems. The key idea consists in deriving from the commutativity of the differentiation and difference operators a sequence of iterated extensions of the original difference module, thereby setting the problem in the framework of difference Galois theory and finally reducing it to an exercise in linear algebra on the group of divisors of the involved elliptic curve or torus.

We use Hodge theoretic methods to study homotopy types of complex projective manifolds with arbitrary fundamental groups. The main tool we use is the schematization functor, introduced by the third author as a substitute for the rationalization functor in homotopy theory in the case of non-simply connected spaces. Our main result is the construction of a Hodge decomposition on . This Hodge decomposition is encoded in an action of the discrete group on the object and is shown to recover the usual Hodge decomposition on cohomology, the Hodge filtration on the pro-algebraic fundamental group, and, in the simply connected case, the Hodge decomposition on the complexified homotopy groups. We show that our Hodge decomposition satisfies a purity property with respect to a weight filtration, generalizing the fact that the higher homotopy groups of a simply connected projective manifold have natural mixed Hodge structures. As applications we construct new examples of homotopy types which are not realizable as complex projective manifolds and we prove a formality theorem for the schematization of a complex projective manifold.

We establish various properties of the definition of cohomology of topological groups given by Grothendieck, Artin and Verdier in SGA4, including a Hochschild–Serre spectral sequence and a continuity theorem for compact groups. We use these properties to compute the cohomology of the Weil group of a totally imaginary field, and of the Weil-étale topology of a number ring recently introduced by Lichtenbaum (both with integer coefficients).

We introduce a valuation-theoretic approach to the problem of semistable reduction (i.e. existence of logarithmic extensions on suitable covers) of overconvergent isocrystals with Frobenius structure. The key tool is the quasicompactness of the Riemann–Zariski space associated to the function field of a variety. We also make some initial reductions, which allow attention to be focused on valuations of height 1 and transcendence degree 0.

In this paper we prove that most ropes of arbitrary multiplicity supported on smooth curves can be smoothed. By a rope being smoothable we mean that the rope is the flat limit of a family of smooth, irreducible curves. To construct a smoothing, we connect, on the one hand, deformations of a finite morphism to projective space and, on the other hand, morphisms from a rope to projective space. We also prove a general result of independent interest, namely that finite covers onto smooth irreducible curves embedded in projective space can be deformed to a family of 1:1 maps. We apply our general theory to prove the smoothing of ropes of multiplicity 3 on P1. Even though this paper focuses on ropes of dimension 1, our method yields a general approach to deal with the smoothing of ropes of higher dimension.

We generalize Gaeta’s theorem to the family of determinantal schemes. In other words, we show that the schemes defined by minors of a fixed size of a matrix with polynomial entries belong to the same G-biliaison class of a complete intersection whenever they have maximal possible codimension, given the size of the matrix and of the minors that define them.

We prove the Bertram–Feinberg–Mukai conjecture for a generic curve C of genus g and a semistable vector bundle E of rank two and determinant K on C, namely we prove the injectivity of the Petri-canonical map S2(H0(E))→H0(S2(E)).

We prove that, given a smooth projective curve C of genus g≥2, the forgetful morphism (respectively ) from the moduli space of orthogonal (respectively symplectic) bundles to the moduli space of all vector bundles over C is an embedding. Our proof relies on an explicit description of a set of generators for the polynomial invariants on the representation space of a quiver under the action of a product of classical groups.

In this paper we deduce a universal result about the asymptotic distribution of roots of random polynomials, which can be seen as a complement to an old and famous result of Erdős and Turan. More precisely, given a sequence of random polynomials, we show that, under some very general conditions, the roots tend to cluster near the unit circle, and their angles are uniformly distributed. The method we use is deterministic: in particular, we do not assume independence or equidistribution of the coefficients of the polynomial.

We construct a Kähler structure (which we call a generalised Kähler cone) on an open subset of the cone of a strongly pseudo-convex CR manifold endowed with a one-parameter family of compatible Sasaki structures. We determine those generalised Kähler cones which are Bochner-flat and we study their local geometry. We prove that any Bochner-flat Kähler manifold of complex dimension bigger than two is locally isomorphic to a generalised Kähler cone.

We give a local normal form for Dirac structures. As a consequence, we show that the dimensions of the pre-symplectic leaves of a Dirac manifold have the same parity. We also show that, given a point m of a Dirac manifold M, there is a well-defined transverse Poisson structure to the pre-symplectic leaf P through m. Finally, we describe the neighborhood of a pre-symplectic leaf in terms of geometric data. This description agrees with that given by Vorobjev for the Poisson case.

Let Mμ0 denote S2×S2 endowed with a split symplectic form normalized so that μ≥1 and σ(S2)=1. Given a symplectic embedding of the standard ball of capacity c∈(0,1) into Mμ0, consider the corresponding symplectic blow-up . In this paper, we study the homotopy type of the symplectomorphism group and that of the space of unparametrized symplectic embeddings of Bc into Mμ0. Writing ℓ for the largest integer strictly smaller than μ, and λ∈(0,1] for the difference μ−ℓ, we show that the symplectomorphism group of a blow-up of ‘small’ capacity c<λ is homotopically equivalent to the stabilizer of a point in Symp(Mμ0), while that of a blow-up of ‘large’ capacity c≥λ is homotopically equivalent to the stabilizer of a point in the symplectomorphism group of a non-trivial bundle obtained by blowing down . It follows that, for c<λ, the space is homotopy equivalent to S2 ×S2, while, for c≥λ, it is not homotopy equivalent to any finite CW-complex. A similar result holds for symplectic ruled manifolds diffeomorphic to . By contrast, we show that the embedding spaces and , if non-empty, are always homotopy equivalent to the spaces of ordered configurations and . Our method relies on the theory of pseudo-holomorphic curves in 4 -manifolds, on the computation of Gromov invariants in rational 4 -manifolds, and on the inflation technique of Lalonde and McDuff.