The Hankel index of a real variety X is an invariant that quantifies the difference between nonnegative quadrics and sums of squares on X. In [5], the authors proved an intriguing bound on the Hankel index in terms of the Green–Lazarsfeld index, which measures the ‘linearity’ of the minimal free resolution of the ideal of X. In all previously known cases, this bound was tight. We provide the first class of examples where the bound is not tight; in fact, the difference between Hankel index and Green–Lazarsfeld index can be arbitrarily large. Our examples are outer projections of rational normal curves, where we identify the center of projection with a binary form F. The Green–Lazarsfeld index of the projected curve is given by the complex Waring border rank of F [16]. We show that the Hankel index is given by the almost real rank of F, which is a new notion that comes from decomposing F as a sum of powers of almost real forms. Finally, we determine the range of possible and typical almost real ranks for binary forms.

In this paper, we construct a natural probability measure on the space of real branched coverings from a real projective algebraic curve $(X,c_X)$ to the projective line $(\mathbb{C} \mathbb {P}^1,\textit{conj} )$ . We prove that the space of degree d real branched coverings having “many” real branched points (for example, more than $\sqrt {d}^{1+\alpha }$ , for any $\alpha>0$ ) has exponentially small measure. In particular, maximal real branched coverings – that is, real branched coverings such that all the branched points are real – are exponentially rare.

We define Schwartz functions, tempered functions, and tempered distributions on (possibly singular) real algebraic varieties. We prove that all classical properties of these spaces, defined previously on affine spaces and on Nash manifolds, also hold in the case of affine real algebraic varieties, and give partial results for the non-affine case.

We show that the set of real polynomials in two variables that are sums of three squares of rational functions is dense in the set of those that are positive semidefinite. We also prove that the set of real surfaces in $\mathbb{P}^{3}$ whose function field has level 2 is dense in the set of those that have no real points.

We previously obtained a congruence modulo four for the number of real solutions to many Schubert problems on a square Grassmannian given by osculating flags. Here we consider Schubert problems given by more general isotropic flags, and prove this congruence modulo four for the largest class of Schubert problems that could be expected to exhibit this congruence.

Klep and Velušček generalized the Krull–Baer theorem for higher level preorderings to the non-commutative setting. A $n$-real valuation $v$ on a skew field $D$ induces a group homomorphism $\overline{v}$. A section of $\overline{v}$ is a crucial ingredient of the construction of a complete preordering on the base field $D$ such that its projection on the residue skew field ${{k}_{v}}$ equals the given level 1 ordering on ${{k}_{v}}$. In the article we give a proof of the existence of the section of $\overline{v}$, which was left as an open problem by Klep and Velušček, and thus complete the generalization of the Krull–Baer theorem for preorderings.

We present a new approach to noncommutative real algebraic geometry based on the representation theory of ${{C}^{*}}$-algebras. An important result in commutative real algebraic geometry is Jacobi's representation theorem for archimedean quadratic modules on commutative rings. We show that this theorem is a consequence of the Gelfand–Naimark representation theorem for commutative ${{C}^{*}}$-algebras. A noncommutative version of Gelfand–Naimark theory was studied by I. Fujimoto. We use his results to generalize Jacobi's theorem to associative rings with involution.

Let $X,\,Y$ be reduced and irreducible compact complex spaces and $S$ the set of all isomorphism classes of reduced and irreducible compact complex spaces $W$ such that $X\,\times \,Y\,\cong \,X\,\times \,W$. Here we prove that $S$ is at most countable. We apply this result to show that for every reduced and irreducible compact complex space $X$ the set $S(X)$ of all complex reduced compact complex spaces $W$ with $X\,\times \,{{X}^{\sigma }}\,\cong \,W\,\times \,{{W}^{\sigma }}$ (where ${{A}^{\sigma }}$ denotes the complex conjugate of any variety $A$) is at most countable.