In [3] we classified the real forms of cusp singularities and described their topology; on the way we gave a detailed treatment of the automorphism group. In further work on deformations of real cusp singularities it has been found that these results need completing in certain aspects, and this is the object of the present paper.

Let A be a (commutative, Noetherian) local ring. The big Cohen-Macaulay conjecture asserts that if a1,…,an is a system of parameters for A there exists an A-module M such that a1,…,an is an M-sequence. Then we say that M is a big Cohen-Macaulay module with respect to a1,…,an. This conjecture implies some important conjectures in commutative algebra and has been established affirmatively by M. Hochster for any ring containing a field as a subring (see [9] for further information).

In this paper, multigraphs will have no loops. For a multigraph G, the least number of colours needed to colour the edges of G in such a way that no two edges on the same vertex of G have the same colour, is called the edge-chromatic number, or the chromatic index, of G, and denoted χ′(G). It is clear that if Δ(G) denotes the maximum degree of G, then Δ(G) ≤ χ′(G). If Δ(G) = χ′(G), then G is Class 1, and otherwise G is Class 2.

A group G is defined to be a B-group if any primitive permutation group which contains G as a regular subgroup is doubly transitive. In the case where G is finite the existence of families of B-groups has been established by Burnside, Schur, Wielandt and others and led to the investigation of S-rings. A survey of this work is given in [3], sections 13·7–13·12. In this paper the possibility of the existence of countable B-groups is discussed. Three distinct methods are given to embed a countable group as a regular subgroup of a simply primitive permutation group, and in each case a condition on the square root sets of elements of the group is necessary for the embedding to be carried out. It is easy to demonstrate that this condition is not sufficient, and the general question remains open.

In a recent article [13] a series of vanishing theorems was obtained for the (co)homology of locally nilpotent groups. These results assert that if (co)homology vanishes in low dimensions (0 or 1), then it vanishes in all dimensions, provided that the module satisfies an appropriate finiteness condition.

Arithmetic Fuchsian and Kleinian groups can all be obtained from quaternion algebras (see [2,12]). In a series of papers ([8,9,10,11]), Takeuchi investigated and characterized arithmetic Fuchsian groups among all Fuchsian groups of finite covolume, in terms of the traces of the elements in the group. His methods are readily adaptable to Kleinian groups, and we obtain a similar characterization of arithmetic Kleinian groups in §3. Commensurability classes of Kleinian groups of finite co-volume are discussed in [2] and it is shown there that the arithmetic groups can be characterized as those having dense commensurability subgroup. Here the wide commensurability classes of arithmetic Kleinian groups are shown to be approximately in one-to-one correspondence with the isomorphism classes of the corresponding quaternion algebras (Theorem 2) and it easily follows that there are infinitely many wide commensurability classes of cocompact Kleinian groups, and hence of compact hyperbolic 3-manifolds.

For many questions, both in Mathematics and in Physics, the most important representations of a Lie algebra a are those which are unitarizable and highest weight (such representations are automatically irreducible). The classification of such representations when a is a finite-dimensional complex simple Lie algebra was completed only recently (see [3] for details and further references) and the corresponding question when a is an affine algebra was investigated by Jakobsen and Kac [5]. Theorem 3·1 of that paper contains a list of unitarizable highest weight representations which is claimed to be exhaustive. However, we shall show that this list is incomplete by constructing a further family of such representations. In fact, the classification problem in the affine case must be considered to be still open.

Suppose a group H is given as a free product with amalgamation

determined by groups A0, A1, A2 and homomorphisms α1: A0 → A1, α2: A0 → A2. Thus H may be described as the quotient of the free product A * A2 by the relations i1 α1 (α0) = i2α2 (α0) for all α0 ∈ A0, where i1, i2 are the two injections of A1, A2 into A1 * A2. We do not assume that α1, α2 are injective, so the canonical homomorphisms α′i: Ai → H, i = 0,1,2, also need not be injective.

The topology most often used on a totally ordered group (G, <) is the interval topology. There are usually many ways to totally order G x G (e.g., the lexicographic order) but the interval topology induced by such a total order is rarely used since the product topology has obvious advantages. Let ℝ(+) denote the real line with its usual order and Q(+) the subgroup of rational numbers. There is an order on Q x Q whose associated interval topology is the product topology, but no such order on ℝ x ℝ can be found. In this paper we characterize those pairs G, H of totally ordered groups such that there is a total order on G x H for which the interval topology is the product topology.

In 1973 Ronnie Lee introduced the notion of semicharacteristic classes, which are invariants of the bordism group ℜ*(Bπ) of closed manifolds equipped with a free action of a finite group π. In this paper we relativize his theory. Associated to a homomorphism G → π of finite groups, there is the relative bordism group ℜ*(BG → Bπ), which is the bordism group of compact manifolds M with a free π-action, so that the action on ∂M is induced from a free G-action, i.e. ∂M = π xGN for some manifold N with a free G-action. The invariants defined here are invariants of this relative group.

A fundamental and interesting question in knot theory is:

Question 1. How many prime knots of n crossings are there ?

Over time, knot theorists have answered this question for n ≤ 13 by the method of exhaustion: one writes down a list of all possible knots of n crossings, and then works hard to eliminate duplications from the list [12]. A perhaps easier question is the following:

Let L be an alternating link and be its reduced (or proper) alternating diagram. Let w() denote the writhe of [3], i.e. the number of positive crossings minus the number of negative crossings. Let VL(t) be the Jones polynomial of L [2]. Let dmaxVL(t) and dminVL(t) denote the maximal and minimal degrees of VL(t), respectively. Furthermore, let σ(L) be the signature of L [5].

A (connected) Riemannian manifold M is geodesically complete (i.e. each geodesic may be extended to a geodesic with domain ( −∞, + ∞)) iff, as a metric space under the induced Riemannian distance function, M is Cauchy complete ([12], p. 138). Furthermore, all compact Riemannian manifolds are complete. On the other hand, compact pseudo-Riemannian manifolds exist which are not geodesically complete. For example Fierz and Jost[8] have constructed incomplete metrics of the form 2dx dy + h dy2 on T2. Furthermore, Williams [16] has shown that geodesic completeness may fail to be stable for pseudo-Riemannian manifolds. Here a property is said to be stable if the set of metrics for M with this property is open. This failure of stability may occur for both compact and non-compact manifolds. In particular, Williams has found that M = S1 x S1 = ℝ/(2πZ x 2πZ), which may be given the complete Lorentzian metric g = 2dx dy, also admits Lorentzian metrics gn = 2dx dy+(sin(x)/n) dy2 which are geodesically incomplete yet which for large n are arbitrarily close to g in the Whitney fine Cr topologies. In this example the set S = {(0, y)|0 ≤ y ≤ 2π} represents the image of a closed null geodesic for (M, g) and also for all (M, gn). However, for the metrics (M, gn) this closed null geodesic has affine parametrizations which are incomplete because the velocity vector of this null geodesic returns to a scalar multiple of itself after each complete circuit of S. In general, a closed null geodesic will be complete iff its velocity vector returns exactly to itself after each trip around its image.

Let X, X1, X2,… be a sequence of non-degenerate i.i.d. random variables with common distribution function F. For 1 ≤ j ≤ n, let mn(j) be the number of Xi satisfying either |Xi| > |Xj|, 1 ≤ i ≤ n, or |Xi| = |Xj|, 1 ≤ i ≤ j, and let (r)Xn = Xj if mn(j) = r. Thus (r)Xn is the rth largest random variable in absolute value from amongst X1, …, Xn with ties being broken according to the order in which the random variables occur. Set (r)Sn = (r+1)Xn + … + (n)Xn and write Sn for (0)Sn. We will refer to (r)Sn as a trimmed sum.

For stochastic processes which are induced by a signed measure, the Andersen-Jessen theorem asserts almost sure convergence and yields the identification of the limit. This result has been extended to real and vector-valued stochastic processes which are induced by a finitely additive set function or a set function process. In the present paper, we study the structure of such induced stochastic processes in order to locate the Andersen-Jessen theorem and its extensions in the family of convergence theorems for martingales and their generalizations. As an application of these results, we also show that the Andersen-Jessen theorem and its extensions can be deduced from the convergence theorems for conditional expectations and positive supermartingales.

It has recently been shown [7, 8, 4] that Markov dilations of quantum dynamical semigroups may be constructed by solving corresponding quantum stochastic differential equations. These equations may be interpreted as describing the evolution of a quantum system with a singular coupling to a Boson reservoir, moreover, when solutions are combined with the free evolution of the reservoir, a reversible evolution results which may be interpreted as that of the system plus reservoir. It is the purpose of the present paper to characterize the above stochastic evolutions essentially by a condition of with respect to the free evolution.

A direct and simple approach, utilizing Watson's lemma, is presented for obtaining an approximate solution of a three-part Wiener-Hopf problem associated with the problem of diffraction of a plane wave by a soft strip.

In his monograph [2], Doob presented the theories of quasi-bounded and singular functions associated with the Laplace and heat equations. In particular, on p. 712, he proved in the classical case that a potential is quasi-bounded if and only if its associated measure vanishes on polar sets. However, on p. 714, he proved only weaker results for the thermic case, namely that a potential is quasi-bounded (i) if its associated measure vanishes on semi-polar sets, and (ii) only if its measure vanishes on polar sets. The main purpose of this note is to establish that the exact analogue of the result for the classical case holds for the thermic case. We also use a related theorem on thermal potentials, to prove a second characterization of those which are quasi-bounded, analogous to one due to Arsove and Leutwiler for the classical case. We also give the corresponding characterizations of singular thermal potentials.