NTS ABSTRACTFall2024

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Sep 12

Non-reductive special cycles and arithmetic fundamental lemmas

Zhiyu Zhang (Stanford)

We care about arithmetic invariants of polynomial equations e.g. L-functions, which (conjecturally) are often automorphic and related to special cycles on Shimura varieties (or Shimura sets) based on the relative Langlands program. Arithmetic fundamental lemmas reveal such relations in the p-adic local world. In this talk, I will study certain ``universal'’ non-reductive special cycles on local GL_n Shimura varieties, and give applications e.g. the proof of twisted arithmetic fundamental lemma for the tuple (U_n, GL_n, U_n). Time permitting, I will explain some global analogs where at least the (Betti) cohomology class of special cycles could be defined. It turns out that algebraic special cycles are often pullbacks of ``universal’’ non-algebraic cycles (e.g. from Kudla-Millson theory on non-Hermitian symmetric spaces).

Sep 19

Random walks on group extensions

Alireza Golsefidy (UCSD)

Lindenstrauss and Varju asked the following questions: for every prime p, let S_p be a symmetric generating set of G_p:=SL(2,F_p)xSL(2,F_p). Suppose the family of Cayley graphs {Cay(SL(2,F_p), pr_i(S_p))} is a family of expanders, where pr_i is the projection to the i-th component. Is it true that the family of Cayley graphs {Cay(G_p, S_p)} is a family of expanders? We answer this question and go beyond that by describing random-walks in various group extensions. (This is a joint work with Srivatsa Srinivas.)

Sep 26

Rational points on/near homogeneous hyper-surfaces

Niclas Technau (U Bonn)

How many rational points are on/near a compact hyper-surface? This question is related to Serre's Dimension Growth Conjecture. We survey the state of the art, and explain a standard random model. Furthermore, we report on recent joint work with Rajula Srivastava (Uni/MPIM Bonn). Our arguments are rooted in Fourier analysis and, in particular, clarify the role of curvature in the random model.

Oct 3

Distributions of how the p-adic Galois group acts in geometric local systems.

Asvin G (IPAM)

(Joint work with John Yin). We analyze potential generalizations of the Sato-Tate question to fibrations (of elliptic curves and other curves) over $\mathbb Z_p$. This builds on our earlier work on analogues of the Chebotarev density theorem in this setting (with Yifan Wei).

Oct 10

Computing Galois images of abelian threefolds with extra endomorphisms

Shiva Chidambaram (UW-Madison)

Let $C$ be a genus $3$ curve whose Jacobian is geometrically simple and has geometric endomorphism algebra equal to an imaginary quadratic field. In particular, consider Picard curves $y^3 = f_4(x)$ which have a natural order-3 automorphism. We study the associated mod-$\ell$ Galois representations and their images. I will discuss an algorithm, developed in ongoing joint work with Pip Goodman, to compute the set of primes $\ell$ for which the images are not maximal. By running it on several datasets of curves, the largest prime with non-maximal image we find is $13$. This may be compared with genus 1, where Serre's uniformity question asks if the mod-$\ell$ Galois image of non-CM elliptic curves over $\Q$ is maximal for all primes $\ell > 37$.

Oct 17

Quartic Gauss sums over primes and metaplectic theta functions

Alex Dunn (Georgia Tech)

We improve 1987 estimates of Patterson for sums of quartic Gauss sums over primes. Our Type-I and Type-II estimates feature new ideas, including use of the quadratic large sieve over the Gaussian quadratic field, and Suzuki's evaluation of the Fourier-Whittaker coefficients of quartic theta functions at squares. We also conjecture asymptotics for certain moments of quartic Gauss sums over primes. This is a joint work with C.David, A.Hamieh, and H.Lin.

Oct 24

Rigid meromorphic cocycles for orthogonal groups

Michael Lipnowski (OSU)

Rigid meromorphic cocycles are defined in the setting of orthogonal groups of arbitrary real signature and constructed in some instances via a p-adic analogue of Borcherds' singular theta lift. The values of rigid meromorphic cocycles at special points of an associated p-adic symmetric space are then conjectured to belong to class fields of suitable global reflex fields, suggesting an eventual framework for explicit class field theory beyond the setting of CM fields explored in the treatise of Shimura and Taniyama.

Oct 31

Faster isomorphism testing of p-groups of Frattini class-2

Chuanqi Zhang (University of Technology Sydney)

The finite group isomorphism problem asks to decide whether two finite groups of order N are isomorphic. Improving the classical $N^{O(\log N)}$-time algorithm for group isomorphism is a long-standing open problem. It is generally regarded that p-groups of class 2 and exponent p form a bottleneck case for group isomorphism in general. The recent breakthrough by Sun (STOC '23) presents an $N^{O((\log N)^{5/6})}$-time algorithm for this group class. Our work sharpens the key technical ingredients in Sun's algorithm and further improves Sun's result by presenting an $N^{\tilde O((\log N)^{1/2})}$-time algorithm for this group class. Besides, we also extend the result to the more general p-groups of Frattini class-2, which includes non-abelian 2-groups. In this talk, I will present the problem background and our main algorithm in detail, and introduce some connections with other research topics. For example, one intriguing connection is with the maximal and non-commutative ranks of matrix spaces, which have recently received considerable attention in algebraic complexity and computational invariant theory. Results from the theory of Tensor Isomorphism complexity class (Grochow--Qiao, SIAM J. Comput. '23) are utilized to simplify the algorithm and achieve the extension to p-groups of Frattini class-2.