We investigate the geometry of codimension one foliations on smooth projective varieties defined over fields of positive characteristic with an eye toward applications to the structure of codimension one holomorphic foliations on projective manifolds.

Let k be a field of characteristic zero and $k^{[n]}$ the polynomial algebra in n variables over k. The LND conjecture concerning the images of locally nilpotent derivations arose from the Jacobian conjecture. We give a positive answer to the LND conjecture in several cases. More precisely, we prove that the images of rank-one locally nilpotent derivations of $k^{[n]}$ acting on principal ideals are MZ-subspaces for any $n\geq 2$, and that the images of a large class of locally nilpotent derivations of $k^{[3]}$ (including all rank-two and homogeneous rank-three locally nilpotent derivations) acting on principal ideals are MZ-subspaces.

Let K be a field of arbitrary characteristic, $${\cal A}$$ be a commutative K-algebra which is a domain of essentially finite type (e.g., the algebra of functions on an irreducible affine algebraic variety), $${a_r}$$ be its Jacobian ideal, and $${\cal D}\left( {\cal A} \right)$$ be the algebra of differential operators on the algebra $${\cal A}$$ . The aim of the paper is to give a simplicity criterion for the algebra $${\cal D}\left( {\cal A} \right)$$ : the algebra $${\cal D}\left( {\cal A} \right)$$ is simple iff $${\cal D}\left( {\cal A} \right)a_r^i{\cal D}\left( {\cal A} \right) = {\cal D}\left( {\cal A} \right)$$ for all i ≥ 1 provided the field K is a perfect field. Furthermore, a simplicity criterion is given for the algebra $${\cal D}\left( R \right)$$ of differential operators on an arbitrary commutative algebra R over an arbitrary field. This gives an answer to an old question to find a simplicity criterion for algebras of differential operators.

We prove the Lipman–Zariski conjecture for complex surface singularities with $p_{g}-g-b\leqslant 2$. Here $p_{g}$ is the geometric genus, $g$ is the sum of the genera of exceptional curves and $b$ is the first Betti number of the dual graph. This improves on a previous result of the second author. As an application, we show that a compact complex surface with a locally free tangent sheaf is smooth as soon as it admits two generically linearly independent twisted vector fields and its canonical sheaf has at most two global sections.

Let $W\subset \operatorname{GL}(V)$ be a complex reflection group and $\mathscr{A}(W)$ the set of the mirrors of the complex reflections in $W$. It is known that the complement $X(\mathscr{A}(W))$ of the reflection arrangement $\mathscr{A}(W)$ is a $K(\unicode[STIX]{x1D70B},1)$ space. For $Y$ an intersection of hyperplanes in $\mathscr{A}(W)$, let $X(\mathscr{A}(W)^{Y})$ be the complement in $Y$ of the hyperplanes in $\mathscr{A}(W)$ not containing $Y$. We hope that $X(\mathscr{A}(W)^{Y})$ is always a $K(\unicode[STIX]{x1D70B},1)$. We prove it in case of the monomial groups $W=G(r,p,\ell )$. Using known results, we then show that there remain only three irreducible complex reflection groups, leading to just eight such induced arrangements for which this $K(\unicode[STIX]{x1D70B},1)$ property remains to be proved.

In this note we prove the following surprising characterization: if $X\,\subset \,{{\mathbb{A}}^{n}}$ is an (embedded, non-empty, proper) algebraic variety deûned over a field $k$ of characteristic zero, then $X$ is a hypersurface if and only if the module ${{T}_{{{O}_{{{\mathbb{A}}^{n\,/k}}}}}}(X)$ of logarithmic vector fields of $X$ is a reflexive ${{O}_{{{\mathbb{A}}^{n}}}}$-module. As a consequence of this result, we derive that if ${{T}_{{{O}_{{{\mathbb{A}}^{n\,/k}}}}}}(X)$ is a free ${{O}_{{{\mathbb{A}}^{n}}}}$-module, which is shown to be equivalent to the freeness of the $t$-th exterior power of ${{T}_{{{O}_{{{\mathbb{A}}^{n\,/k}}}}}}(X)$ for some (in fact, any) $t\,\le \,n$, then necessarily $X$ is a Saito free divisor.

Let ${\cal F}$ =(F; +, .,0, 1, D) be a differentially closed field. We consider the question of definability of the derivation D in reducts of ${\cal F}$ of the form ${\cal F}$R = (F; +, .,0, 1, P)P ε R where R is some collection of definable sets in ${\cal F}$. We give examples and nonexamples and establish some criteria for definability of D. Finally, using the tools developed in the article, we prove that under the assumption of inductiveness of Th (${\cal F}$R) model completeness is a necessary condition for definability of D. This can be seen as part of a broader project where one is interested in finding Ax-Schanuel type inequalities (or predimension inequalities) for differential equations.

We describe a general method for expanding a truncated $G$-iterative Hasse–Schmidt derivation, where $G$ is an algebraic group. We give examples of algebraic groups for which our method works.

Let $A$ be a Banach algebra and let $\pi :\,A\,\to \,\mathcal{L}\left( H \right)$ be a continuous representation of $A$ on a separable Hilbert space $H$ with dim $H\,=\,\text{m}$. Let ${{\pi }_{ij}}$ be the coordinate functions of $\pi $ with respect to an orthonormal basis and suppose that for each $1\,\le \,j\,\le \,\text{m,}\,{{C}_{j}}\,=\,\sum\nolimits_{i=1}^{\text{m}}{\left\| {{\pi }_{ij}} \right\|}{{A}^{*}}\,<\,\infty $ and ${{\sup }_{j}}\,{{C}_{j}}\,<\,\infty $. Under these conditions, we call an element $\overline{\Phi }\,\in \,{{\iota }^{\infty }}\,\left( \mathfrak{m},\,{{A}^{**}} \right)$ left $\pi $-invariant if $a\,\cdot \overline{\Phi }\,={{\,}^{^{t}\pi }}\left( a \right)\overline{\Phi }$ for all $a\in A$ In this paper we prove a link between the existence of left $\pi $-invariant elements and the vanishing of certain Hochschild cohomology groups of $A$. Our results extend an earlier result by Lau on $F$-algebras and recent results of Kaniuth, Lau, Pym, and and the second author in the special case where $\pi :\,A\,\to \text{C}$ is a non-zero character on $A$.

For a derivation δ of a commutative Noetherian ${\mathbb C}$-algebra A, a homeomorphism is established between the prime spectrum of the Ore extension A[z;δ] and the Poisson prime spectrum of the polynomial algebra A[z] endowed with the Poisson bracket such that {A,A}=0 and {z,a}=δ(a) for all a ∈ A.

In this paper we investigate the following functional inequality

$ \begin{eqnarray*} \| f(x-y-z) - f(x-y+z) + f(y) +f(z)\| \leq \|f(x+y-z) - f(x)\| \end{eqnarray*}$

An example is given of a UFD which has an infinitely generated Derksen invariant. The ring is “almost rigid” meaning that the Derksen invariant is equal to the Makar-Limanov invariant. Techniques to show that a ring is (almost) rigid are discussed, among which is a generalization of Mason's ABC-theorem.

We strengthen certain results concerning actions of $\left( \mathbb{C},\,+ \right)$ on ${{\mathbb{C}}^{3}}$ and embeddings of ${{\mathbb{C}}^{2}}$ in ${{\mathbb{C}}^{3}}$, and show that these results are in fact valid over any field of characteristic zero.