In this paper, we study ergodic $\mathbb {Z}^r$-actions and investigate expansion properties along cyclic subgroups. We show that under some spectral conditions, there are always directions which expand significantly a given measurable set with positive measure. Among other things, we use this result to prove that the set of volumes of all r-simplices with vertices in a set with positive upper density must contain an infinite arithmetic progression, thus showing a discrete density analogue of a classical result by Graham.

To any free group automorphism, we associate a universal (cone of) limit tree(s) with three defining properties: first, the tree has a minimal isometric action of the free group with trivial arc stabilizers; second, there is a unique expanding dilation of the tree that represents the free group automorphism; and finally, the loxodromic elements are exactly the elements that weakly limit to dominating attracting laminations under forward iteration by the automorphism. So the action on the tree detects the automorphism’s dominating exponential dynamics.

As a corollary, our previously constructed limit pretree that detects the exponential dynamics is canonical. We also characterize all very small trees that admit an expanding homothety representing a given automorphism. In the appendix, we prove a variation of Feighn–Handel’s recognition theorem for atoroidal outer automorphisms.

The complex field, equipped with the multivalued functions of raising to each complex power, is quasiminimal, proving a conjecture of Zilber and providing evidence towards his stronger conjecture that the complex exponential field is quasiminimal.

An identity that is reminiscent of the Littlewood identity plays a fundamental role in recent proofs of the facts that alternating sign triangles are equinumerous with totally symmetric self-complementary plane partitions and that alternating sign trapezoids are equinumerous with holey cyclically symmetric lozenge tilings of a hexagon. We establish a bounded version of a generalization of this identity. Further, we provide combinatorial interpretations of both sides of the identity. The ultimate goal would be to construct a combinatorial proof of this identity (possibly via an appropriate variant of the Robinson-Schensted-Knuth correspondence) and its unbounded version, as this would improve the understanding of the mysterious relation between alternating sign trapezoids and plane partition objects.

We obtain an adaptation of Dade’s Conjecture and Späth’s Character Triple Conjecture to unipotent characters of simple, simply connected finite reductive groups of type $\mathbf {A}$, $\mathbf {B}$ and $\mathbf {C}$. In particular, this gives a precise formula for counting the number of unipotent characters of each defect d in any Brauer $\ell $-block B in terms of local invariants associated to e-local structures. This provides a geometric version of the local-global principle in representation theory of finite groups. A key ingredient in our proof is the construction of certain parametrisations of unipotent generalised Harish-Chandra series that are compatible with isomorphisms of character triples.

We produce a flexible tool for contracting subcurves of logarithmic hyperelliptic curves, which is local around the subcurve and commutes with arbitrary base-change. As an application, we prove that a hyperelliptic multiscale differential determines a sequence of Gorenstein contractions of the underlying nodal curve, such that each meromorphic piece of the differential descends to generate the dualising bundle of one of the Gorenstein contractions. This is the first piece of evidence for a more general conjecture about limits of meromorphic differentials.

We realise Buchweitz and Flenner’s semiregularity map (and hence a fortiori Bloch’s semiregularity map) for a smooth variety X as the tangent of a generalised Abel–Jacobi map on the derived moduli stack of perfect complexes on X. The target of this map is an analogue of Deligne cohomology defined in terms of cyclic homology, and Goodwillie’s theorem on nilpotent ideals ensures that it has the desired tangent space (a truncated de Rham complex).

Immediate consequences are the semiregularity conjectures: that the semiregularity maps annihilate all obstructions, and that if X is deformed, semiregularity measures the failure of the Chern character to remain a Hodge class. This gives rise to reduced obstruction theories of the type featuring in the study of reduced Gromov–Witten and Pandharipande–Thomas invariants. We also give generalisations allowing X to be singular, and even a derived stack.

The present paper explores a connection between two concepts arising from different fields of mathematics. The first concept, called vine, is a graphical model for dependent random variables. This concept first appeared in a work of Joe (1994), and the formal definition was given later by Cooke (1997). Vines have nowadays become an active research area whose applications can be found in probability theory and uncertainty analysis. The second concept, called MAT-freeness, is a combinatorial property in the theory of freeness of logarithmic derivation modules of hyperplane arrangements. This concept was first studied by Abe-Barakat-Cuntz-Hoge-Terao (2016), and soon afterwards investigated further by Cuntz-Mücksch (2020).

In the particular case of graphic arrangements, the last two authors (2023) recently proved that the MAT-freeness is completely characterized by the existence of certain edge-labeled graphs, called MAT-labeled graphs. In this paper, we first introduce a poset characterization of a vine. Then we show that, interestingly, there exists an explicit equivalence between the categories of locally regular vines and MAT-labeled graphs. In particular, we obtain an equivalence between the categories of regular vines and MAT-labeled complete graphs.

Several applications will be mentioned to illustrate the interaction between the two concepts. Notably, we give an affirmative answer to a question of Cuntz-Mücksch that MAT-freeness can be characterized by a generalization of the root poset in the case of graphic arrangements.