arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Jason Bell.
We classify all filtered deformations of polynomial rings in three variables. We use our characterization to answer a special case of a question of Etingof by showing that if $F$ is an algebraically closed field of positive characteristic and $A$ is an $F$-algebra with a filtration by finite dimensional subspaces whose associated graded ring is a polynomial ring in three variables then $A$ satisfies a polynomial identity.
Using a method of Balkov\'a--Pelantov\'a, we show that if ${\bf w}$ is a right-infinite word over a finite alphabet, then for each nonnegative integer $N$ there are at most $3(p_{\bf w}(N+1)-p_{\bf w}(N))+1$ distinct upper (and likewise lower and ordinary when they exist) frequencies for length-$(N+1)$ subwords of ${\bf w}$, where $p_{\bf w}(n)$ is the subword complexity function of $n$. In particular, this gives a uniform upper bound when ${\bf w}$ has linearly bounded subword complexity. We provide examples showing that whenever $f(n)$ is a weakly increasing function tending to infinity, there is a word ${\bf w}$ such that the number of subwords of length $n$ is $O(nf(n))$ and for which the limit supremum of the number of distinct upper frequencies of length-$N$ subwords of ${\bf w}$ as $N\to\infty$ is infinite.
Inspired by the model theory of difference fields in characteristic zero, a class of automorphisms of an algebraic variety, here called compound fundamental isotrivial, is introduced. These are algebraic dynamical systems that are built up via a finite sequence of equivariant fibrations from (possibly nonautonomous) algebraic dynamics which trivialise after base extension over themselves. Every wild automorphism of an abelian variety is compound fundamental isotrivial. Conversely, it is shown that the only irreducible projective varieties admitting a wild automorphism that is compound fundamental isotrivial are the abelian varieties. That is, the wild automorphism conjecture of Reichstein, Rogalski, and Zhang is here proven for compound fundamental isotrivial dynamics. Along the way, a counterexample to the naive generalisation of the conjecture to the nonautonomous setting of $\sigma$-varieties is provided.
We prove that every Mahler series, over a field of characteristic $0$, with multiplicative coefficients is regular in the sense of Allouche and Shallit. We also obtain an explicit characterization of such series. This yields a joint extension of the characterization of rational series with multiplicative coefficients (by B\'ezivin and Bell--Bruin--Coons) and of multiplicative automatic sequences (by Konieczny--Lema\'nczyk--M\"ullner). Both of these results are used in our characterization, so we do not obtain new proofs of these special cases.
Let $k\ge 2$ and let $X$ be a subset of the natural numbers that is $k$-automatic and not eventually periodic. We show that the following dichotomy holds: either all $k$-automatic subsets are definable in the expansion of Presburger arithmetic in which we adjoin the predicate $X$, or $(\mathbb{N},+,X)$ has the same definable sets as $(\mathbb{N},+,k^{\mathbb{N}})$.
We study rings over which an analogue of the Weierstrass preparation theorem holds for power series. We show that a commutative ring $R$ admits a factorization of every power series in $R[[x]]$ as the product of a polynomial and a unit if and only if $R$ is isomorphic to a finite product of complete local principal ideal rings. We also characterize Noetherian rings $R$ for which this factorization holds under the weaker condition that the coefficients of the series generate the unit ideal: this occurs precisely when $R$ is isomorphic to a finite product of complete local Noetherian integral domains. Beyond this, we investigate the failure of Weierstrass-type preparation in finitely generated rings and prove a general transcendence result for zeros of $p$-adic power series, producing a large class of power series over number rings that cannot be written as a polynomial times a unit. Finally, we show that for a finitely generated infinite commutative ring $R$, the decision problem of determining whether an integer power series (with computable coefficients) factors as a polynomial times a unit in $R[[x]]$ is undecidable.
Let $\Bbbk$ be a field of characteristic zero. Motivated by the fundamental question of whether it is possible for the universal enveloping algebra of an infinite-dimensional Lie algebra to be noetherian, we study Lie algebras of derivations of associative algebras. The main result of this paper is that the universal enveloping algebra of the Lie algebra of derivations of a finitely generated $\Bbbk$-algebra is not noetherian. This extends a result of Sierra and Walton on the Witt algebra, as well as a result of the second author on Krichever-Novikov algebras. We highlight that the result applies to derivations of both commutative and noncommutative algebras without restriction on their growth.
We show that every Sturmian word has the property that the distance between consecutive ending positions of cubes occurring in the word is always bounded by $10$ and this bound is optimal, extending a result of Rampersad, who proved that the bound $9$ holds for the Fibonacci word. We then give a general result showing that for every $e \in [1,(5+\sqrt{5})/2)$ there is a natural number $N$, depending only on $e$, such that every Sturmian word has the property that the distance between consecutive ending positions of $e$-powers occurring in the word is uniformly bounded by $N$.
Let $F$ be an algebraically closed field of positive characteristic and let $R$ be a finitely generated $F$-algebra with a filtration with the property that the associated graded ring of $R$ is an integral domain of Krull dimension two. We show that under these conditions $R$ satisfies a polynomial identity, answering a question of Etingof in the affirmative in a special case.
This paper concerns the expansion of the real ordered additive group by a predicate for a subset of $[0,1]$ whose base-$r$ representations are recognized by a B\"uchi automaton. In the case that this predicate is closed, a dichotomy is established for when this expansion is interdefinable with the structure $(\mathbb{R},<,+,0,r^{-\mathbb{N}})$ for some $r \in \mathbb{N}_{>1}$. In the case that the closure of the predicate has Hausdorff dimension less than $1$, the dichotomy further characterizes these expansions of $(\mathbb{R},<,+,0,1)$ by when they have NIP and NTP$_2$, which is precisely when the closure of the predicate has Hausdorff dimension $0$.
Let $\Bbbk$ be a field of characteristic zero and let $\mathbb{W}_n = \operatorname{Der}(\Bbbk[x_1,\cdots,x_n])$ be the $n^{\text{th}}$ general Cartan type Lie algebra. In this paper, we study Lie subalgebras $L$ of $\mathbb{W}_n$ of maximal Gelfand-Kirillov (GK) dimension, that is, with $\operatorname{GKdim}(L) = n$. For $n = 1$, we completely classify such $L$, proving a conjecture of the second author. As a corollary, we obtain a new proof that $\mathbb{W}_1$ satisfies the Dixmier conjecture, in other words, $\operatorname{End}(\mathbb{W}_1) \setminus \{0\} = \operatorname{Aut}(\mathbb{W}_1)$, a result first shown by Du. For arbitrary $n$, we show that if $L$ is a GK-dimension $n$ subalgebra of $\mathbb{W}_n$, then $U(L)$ is not (left or right) noetherian.
Let $X$ be an algebraic variety equipped with a dominant rational self-map $\phi:X\to X$. A new quantity measuring the interaction of $(X,\phi)$ with trivial dynamical systems is introduced; the stabilised algebraic dimension of $(X,\phi)$ captures the maximum number of new algebraically independent invariant rational functions on the cartesian product of $(X, \phi)$ and $(Y, \psi)$, as $(Y,\psi)$ ranges over all algebraic dynamical systems. It is shown that this birational invariant agrees with the maximum dimension of a dominant equivariant rational image $(X',\phi')$ where $\phi'$ is part of an algebraic group action on $X'$. As a consequence, it is deduced that if some cartesian power of $(X,\phi)$ admits a nonconstant invariant rational function, then already the second cartesian power does.
We associate lattices to the sets of unions and intersections of left and right quotients of a regular language. For both unions and intersections, we show that the lattices we produce using left and right quotients are dual to each other. We also give necessary and sufficient conditions for these lattices to have maximal possible complexity.
A theorem of Cobham says that if $k$ and $\ell$ are two multiplicatively independent natural numbers then a subset of the natural numbers that is both $k$- and $\ell$-automatic is eventually periodic. A multidimensional extension was later given by Semenov. In this paper, we give a quantitative version of the Cobham-Semenov theorem for sparse automatic sets, showing that the intersection of a sparse $k$-automatic subset of $\mathbb{N}^d$ and a sparse $\ell$-automatic subset of $\mathbb{N}^d$ is finite with size that can be explicitly bounded in terms of data from the automata that accept these sets.
A differential analogue of the conjecture of Reichstein, Rogalski, and Zhang in algebraic dynamics is here established: if $X$ is a projective variety over an algebraically closed field of characteristic zero which admits a global algebraic vector field $v:X\to TX$ such that $(X,v)$ has no proper invariant subvarieties then $X$ is an abelian variety. Vector fields on abelian varieties with this property are also examined. Some of the analysis works in the more general context of $D$-varieties over differential fields: projective $D$-varieties without proper $D$-subvarieties are homogeneous. But the main theorem does not extend: an example of a $D$-variety structure on the projective line without proper $D$-subvarieties is given.
Let $G$ be a semiabelian variety defined over an algebraically closed field $K$ of characteristic $0$. Let $\Phi\colon G\dashrightarrow G$ be a dominant rational self-map. Assume that an iterate $\Phi^m \colon G \to G$ is regular for some $m \geqslant 1$ and that there exists no non-constant homomorphism $\tau: G\to G_0$ of semiabelian varieties such that $\tau\circ \Phi^{m k}=\tau$ for some $k \geqslant 1$. We show that under these assumptions $\Phi$ itself must be a regular. We also prove a variant of this assertion in prime characteristic and present examples showing that our results are sharp.
We study an open question at the interplay between the classical and the dynamical Mordell-Lang conjectures in positive characteristic. Let $K$ be an algebraically closed field of positive characteristic, let $G$ be a finitely generated subgroup of the multiplicative group of $K$, and let $X$ be a (irreducible) quasiprojective variety defined over $K$. We consider $K$-valued sequences of the form $a_n:=f(\varphi^n(x_0))$, where $\varphi\colon X\rightarrow X$ and $f\colon X\rightarrow\mathbb{P}^1$ are rational maps defined over $K$ and $x_0\in X$ is a point whose forward orbit avoids the indeterminacy loci of $\varphi$ and $f$. We show that the set of $n$ for which $a_n\in G$ is a finite union of arithmetic progressions along with a set of upper Banach density zero. In addition, we show that if $a_n\in G$ for every $n$ and the $\varphi$ orbit of $x$ is Zariski dense in $X$ then {there is} a multiplicative torus $\mathbb{G}_m^d$ and maps $\Psi:\mathbb{G}_m^d \to \mathbb{G}_m^d$ and $g:\mathbb{G}_m^d \to \mathbb{G}_m$ such that $a_n = g\circ \Psi^n(y)$ for some $y\in \mathbb{G}_m^d$. We then describe various applications of our results.
We formulate a strengthening of the Zariski dense orbit conjecture for birational maps of dynamical degree one. So, given a quasiprojective variety $X$ defined over an algebraically closed field $K$ of characteristic $0$, endowed with a birational self-map $\phi$ of dynamical degree $1$, we expect that either there exists a non-constant rational function $f:X\dashrightarrow \mathbb{P}^1$ such that $f\circ \phi=f$, or there exists a proper subvariety $Y\subset X$ with the property that for any invariant proper subvariety $Z\subset X$, we have that $Z\subseteq Y$. We prove our conjecture for automorphisms $\phi$ of dynamical degree $1$ of semiabelian varieties $X$. Also, we prove a related result for regular dominant self-maps $\phi$ of semiabelian varieties $X$: assuming $\phi$ does not preserve a non-constant rational function, we have that the dynamical degree of $\phi$ is larger than $1$ if and only if the union of all $\phi$-invariant proper subvarieties of $X$ is Zariski dense. We give applications of our results to representation theoretic questions about twisted homogeneous coordinate rings associated to abelian varieties.