arXiv subjects

Bailey Whitbread

Publications and source records attributed to Bailey Whitbread.

2 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Counting points on braid varieties and the Deligne--Simpson problem

We solve the isoclinic Deligne--Simpson problem for exceptional groups, completing a program initiated by Sage et al. and Jakob--Yun. As a by-product, we obtain new examples of physically rigid irregular connections on the projective line. Our approach uses the Riemann--Hilbert correspondence to reduce the problem to determining the non-emptiness of certain braid varieties associated to periodic braids. We show that this can be achieved by counting points over finite fields. Our approach is inspired by Lusztig's construction of a map from conjugacy classes in the Weyl group to unipotent classes.

math.AG↗

arXiv2024

Counting points on generic character varieties

We count points on character varieties associated with punctured surfaces and regular semisimple generic conjugacy classes in reductive groups. We find that the number of points are palindromic polynomials. This suggests a $P=W$ conjecture for these varieties. We also count points on the corresponding additive character varieties and find that the number of points are also polynomials, which we conjecture have non-negative coefficients. These polynomials can be considered as the reductive analogues of the Kac polynomials of comet-shaped quivers.

math.AG↗