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The paper is devoted to coverings by translative homothets and illuminations of convex bodies. For a given positive number $\alpha$ and a convex body $B$, $g_{\alpha}(B)$ is the infimum of $\alpha$-powers of finitely many homothety coefficients less than 1 such that there is a covering of $B$ by translative homothets with these coefficients. $h_{\alpha}(B)$ is the minimal number of directions such that the boundary of $B$ can be illuminated by this number of directions except for a subset whose Hausdorff dimension is less than $\alpha$. In this paper, we prove that $g_{\alpha}(B)\leq h_{\alpha}(B)$, find upper and lower bounds for both numbers, and discuss several general conjectures. In particular, we show that $h_{\alpha} (B) > 2^{d-\alpha}$ for almost all $\alpha$ and $d$ when $B$ is the $d$-dimensional cube, thus disproving the conjecture from Research Problems in Discrete Geometry by Brass, Moser, and Pach.

The question of which functions acting entrywise preserve positive semidefiniteness has a long history, beginning with the Schur product theorem [Crelle 1911], which implies that absolutely monotonic functions (i.e., power series with nonnegative coefficients) preserve positivity on matrices of all dimensions. A famous result of Schoenberg and of Rudin [Duke Math. J. 1942, 1959] shows the converse: there are no other such functions. Motivated by modern applications, Guillot and Rajaratnam [Trans. Amer. Math. Soc. 2015] classified the entrywise positivity preservers in all dimensions, which act only on the off-diagonal entries. These two results are at "opposite ends", and in both cases the preservers have to be absolutely monotonic. We complete the classification of positivity preservers that act entrywise except on specified "diagonal/principal blocks", in every case other than the two above. (In fact we achieve this in a more general framework.) This yields the first examples of dimension-free entrywise positivity preservers - with certain forbidden principal blocks - that are not absolutely monotonic., Minor edits in exposition, 19 pages. The paper now uses the style file of Trans. AMS (to appear)

A special case of a fundamental result of Loewner and Horn [Trans. Amer. Math. Soc. 1969] says that given an integer $n \geq 1$, if the entrywise application of a smooth function $f : (0,\infty) \to \mathbb{R}$ preserves the set of $n \times n$ positive semidefinite matrices with positive entries, then $f$ and its first $n-1$ derivatives are non-negative on $(0,\infty)$. In a recent joint work with Belton-Guillot-Putinar [J. Eur. Math. Soc., in press], we proved a stronger version, and used it to strengthen the Schoenberg-Rudin characterization of dimension-free positivity preservers [Duke Math. J. 1942, 1959]. In recent works with Belton-Guillot-Putinar [Adv. Math. 2016] and with Tao [Amer. J. Math., in press] we used local, real-analytic versions at the origin of the Horn-Loewner condition, and discovered unexpected connections between entrywise polynomials preserving positivity and Schur polynomials. In this paper, we unify these two stories via a Master Theorem (Theorem A) which (i) simultaneously unifies and extends all of the aforementioned variants; and (ii) proves the positivity of the first $n$ nonzero Taylor coefficients at individual points rather than on all of $(0,\infty)$. A key step in the proof is a new determinantal / symmetric function calculation (Theorem B), which shows that Schur polynomials arise naturally from considering arbitrary entrywise maps that are sufficiently differentiable. Of independent interest may be the following application to symmetric function theory: we extend the Schur function expansion of Cauchy's (1841) determinant (whose matrix entries are geometric series $1 / (1 - u_j v_k)$), as well as of a determinant of Frobenius [J. reine angew. Math. 1882] (whose matrix entries are a sum of two geometric series), to arbitrary power series, and over all commutative rings., Comment: Final version, to appear in Transactions of the American Mathematical Society. 19 pages, no figures

We investigate criteria for circle packing(CP) types of disk triangulation graphs embedded into simply connected domains in $ \mathbb{C}$. In particular, by studying combinatorial curvature and the combinatorial Gauss-Bonnet theorem involving boundary turns, we show that a disk triangulation graph is CP parabolic if \[ \sum_{n=1}^\infty \frac{1}{\sum_{j=0}^{n-1} (k_j +6)} = \infty, \] where $k_n$ is the degree excess sequence defined by \[ k_n = \sum_{v \in B_n} (\mbox{deg}\, v - 6) \] for combinatorial balls $B_n$ of radius $n$ and centered at a fixed vertex. It is also shown that the simple random walk on a disk triangulation graph is recurrent if \[ \sum_{n=1}^\infty \frac{1}{\sum_{j=0}^{n-1} (k_j +6)+\sum_{j=0}^{n} (k_j +6)} = \infty. \] These criteria are sharp, and generalize a conjecture by He and Schramm in their paper from 1995, which was later proved by Repp in 2001. We also give several criteria for CP hyperbolicity, one of which generalizes a theorem of He and Schramm, and present a necessary and sufficient condition for CP types of layered circle packings generalizing and confirming a criterion given by Siders in 1998., Comment: 45 pages, 19 figures; to appear in TAMS

For fixed $r\geq 3$ and $n$ divisible by $r$, let ${\mathcal H}={\mathcal H}^r_{n,M}$ be the random $M$-edge $r$-graph on $V=\{1,\ldots ,n\}$; that is, ${\mathcal H}$ is chosen uniformly from the $M$-subsets of ${\mathcal K}:={V \choose r}$ ($:= \{\mbox{$r$-subsets of $V$}\}$). Shamir's Problem (circa 1980) asks, roughly, for what $M=M(n)$ is ${\mathcal H}$ likely to contain a perfect matching (that is, $n/r$ disjoint $r$-sets)? In 2008 Johansson, Vu and the author showed that this is true for $M>C_rn\log n$. More recently the author proved the asymptotically correct version of that result: for fixed $C> 1/r$ and $M> Cn\log n$, $P({\mathcal H} ~\mbox{contains a perfect matching})\rightarrow 1 \,\,\, \mbox{as $n\rightarrow\infty$}.$ The present work completes a proof, begun in that recent paper, of the definitive "hitting time" statement: $\mbox{Theorem.}$ If $A_1, \ldots ~$ is a uniform permutation of ${\mathcal K}$, ${\mathcal H}_t=\{A_1\dots A_t\}$, and \[ T=\min\{t:A_1\cup \cdots\cup A_t=V\}, \] then $P({\mathcal H}_T ~\mbox{contains a perfect matching})\rightarrow 1 \,\,\, \mbox{as $n\rightarrow\infty$}$.

The Littlewood-Richardson coefficients $c^{\lambda}_{\mu\nu}$ give the multiplicity of an irreducible polynomial ${\rm GL}_n$-representation $F^{\lambda}_n$ in the tensor product of polynomial representations $F^{\mu}_n\otimes F^{\nu}_n$. In this paper, we generalize these coefficients to an $r$-fold tensor product of rational representations, and give a new method for computing them using an analogue of statistical contingency tables. We demonstrate special cases in which our method reduces to counting statistical contingency tables with prescribed margins. Finally, we extend our result from the general linear group to both the orthogonal and symplectic groups.

In this paper we develop a method to transfer density results for primitive automatic sequences to logarithmic-density results for general automatic sequences. As an application we show that the logarithmic densities of any automatic sequence along squares $(n^2)_{n\geq 0}$ and primes $(p_n)_{n\geq 1}$ exist and are computable. Furthermore, we give for these subsequences a criterion to decide whether the densities exist, in which case they are also computable. In particular in the prime case these densities are all rational. We also deduce from a recent result of the third author and Lema\'nczyk that all subshifts generated by automatic sequences are orthogonal to any bounded multiplicative aperiodic function., Comment: 35 pages. We added an Appendix concerning upper densities of subsequences of automatic sequences

A graph $X$ is defined inductively to be $(a_0,\dots,a_{n-1})$-regular if $X$ is $a_0$-regular and for every vertex $v$ of $X$, the sphere of radius $1$ around $v$ is an $(a_1,\dots,a_{n-1})$-regular graph. Such a graph $X$ is said to be highly regular (HR) of level $n$ if $a_{n-1}\neq 0$. Chapman, Linial and Peled studied HR-graphs of level 2 and provided several methods to construct families of graphs which are expanders "globally and locally". They ask whether such HR-graphs of level 3 exist. In this paper we show how the theory of Coxeter groups, and abstract regular polytopes and their generalisations, can lead to such graphs. Given a Coxeter system $(W,S)$ and a subset $M$ of $S$, we construct highly regular quotients of the 1-skeleton of the associated Wythoffian polytope $\mathcal{P}_{W,M}$, which form an infinite family of expander graphs when $(W,S)$ is indefinite and $\mathcal{P}_{W,M}$ has finite vertex links. The regularity of the graphs in this family can be deduced from the Coxeter diagram of $(W,S)$. The expansion stems from applying superapproximation to the congruence subgroups of the linear group $W$. This machinery gives a rich collection of families of HR-graphs, with various interesting properties, and in particular answers affirmatively the question asked by Chapman, Linial and Peled., Comment: 22 pages, 2 tables. Dedicated to the memory of John Conway and Ernest Vinberg

Let X X be an affine spherical variety, possibly singular, and L + X \mathsf L^+X its arc space. The intersection complex of L + X \mathsf L^+X , or rather of its finite-dimensional formal models, is conjectured to be related to special values of local unramified L L -functions. Such relationships were previously established in Braverman–Finkelberg–Gaitsgory–Mirković for the affine closure of the quotient of a reductive group by the unipotent radical of a parabolic, and in Bouthier–Ngô–Sakellaridis for toric varieties and L L -monoids. In this paper, we compute this intersection complex for the large class of those spherical G G -varieties whose dual group is equal to G ˇ \check G , and the stalks of its nearby cycles on the horospherical degeneration of X X . We formulate the answer in terms of a Kashiwara crystal, which conjecturally corresponds to a finite-dimensional G ˇ \check G -representation determined by the set of B B -invariant valuations on X X . We prove the latter conjecture in many cases. Under the sheaf–function dictionary, our calculations give a formula for the Plancherel density of the IC function of L + X \mathsf L^+X as a ratio of local L L -values for a large class of spherical varieties.