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We define the symplectic displacement energy of a non-empty subset of a compact symplectic manifold as the infimum of the Hofer-like norm [5] of symplectic diffeomorphisms that displace the set. We show that this energy (like the usual displacement energy defined using Hamiltonian diffeomorphisms) is a strictly positive number on sets with non-empty interior. As a consequence we prove a result justifying the introduction of the notion of strong symplectic homeomorphisms [4]., Comment: 15 pages, 1 figure

We verify the inductive blockwise Alperin weight (BAW) and the inductive Alperin-McKay (AM) conditions introduced by the second author for blocks of finite quasisimple groups with cyclic defect groups. Furthermore we establish a criterion that describes conditions under which the inductive AM condition for blocks with abelian defect groups implies the inductive BAW condition for those blocks.

We present a new criterion to predict if a character of a finite group extends. Let $G$ be a finite group and $p$ a prime. For $N\lhd G$, we consider $p$-blocks $b$ and $b'$ of $N$ and ${\rm N}_N(D)$, respectively, with $(b')^N=b$, where $D$ is a defect group of $b'$. Under the assumption that $G$ coincides with a normal subgroup $G[b]$ of $G$, which was introduced by Dade early 1970's, we give a character correspondence between the sets of all irreducible constituents of $\phi^G$ and those of $(\phi')^{{\rm N}_G(D)}$ where $\phi$ and $\phi'$ are irreducible Brauer characters in $b$ and $b'$, respectively. This implies a sort of generalization of the theorem of Harris-Kn\"orr. An important tool is the existence of certain extensions that also helps in checking the inductive Alperin-McKay and inductive Blockwise Alperin Weight conditions, due to the second author.

We prove that the group of contact diffeomorphisms is closed in the group of all diffeomorphisms in the C^0-topology. By Gromov's alternative, it suffices to exhibit a diffeomorphism that can not be approximated uniformly by contact diffeomorphisms. Our construction uses Eliashberg's contact shape., Comment: 9 pages

We prove that a topological contact isotopy uniquely defines a topological contact Hamiltonian. Combined with previous results from [MS11], this generalizes the classical one-to-one correspondence between smooth contact isotopies and their generating smooth contact Hamiltonians and conformal factors to the group of topological contact dynamical systems. Applications of this generalized correspondence include C^0-rigidity of smooth contact Hamiltonians, a transformation law for topological contact dynamical systems, and C^0-rigidity of the geodesic flows of Riemannian manifolds., Comment: 22 pages

As a step to establish the McKay conjecture on character degrees of finite groups, we verify the inductive McKay condition introduced by Isaacs-Malle-Navarro for simple groups of Lie type $A_{n-1}$, split or twisted. Key to the proofs is the study of certain characters of SL$_n(q)$ and SU$_n(q)$ related to generalized Gelfand-Graev representations. As a by-product we can show that a Jordan decomposition for the characters of the latter groups is equivariant under outer automorphisms. Many ideas seem applicable to other Lie types.

This sequel to our previous paper [MS11b] continues the study of topological contact dynamics and applications to contact dynamics and topological dynamics. We provide further evidence that the topological automorphism groups of a contact structure and a contact form are the appropriate transformation groups of contact dynamical systems. The article includes an examination of the groups of time-one maps of topological contact and strictly contact isotopies, and the construction of a bi-invariant metric on the latter. Moreover, every topological contact or strictly contact dynamical system is arbitrarily close to a continuous contact or strictly contact dynamical system with the same end point. In particular, the above groups of time-one maps are independent of the choice of norm in the definition of the contact distance. On every contact manifold we construct topological contact dynamical systems with time-one maps that fail to be Lipschitz continuous, and smooth contact vector fields whose flows are topologically conjugate but not conjugate by a contact C^1-diffeomorphism., Comment: 39 pages, sequel to our previous paper arXiv:1110.6705v2 [math.SG]

We introduce topological contact dynamics of a smooth manifold carrying a cooriented contact structure, generalizing previous work in the case of a symplectic structure [MO07] or a contact form [BS12]. A topological contact isotopy is not generated by a vector field; nevertheless, the group identities, the transformation law, and classical uniqueness results in the smooth case extend to topological contact isotopies and homeomorphisms, giving rise to an extension of smooth contact dynamics to topological dynamics. Our approach is via symplectization of a contact manifold, and our main tools are an energy-capacity inequality we prove for contact diffeomorphisms, combined with techniques from measure theory on oriented manifolds. We establish non-degeneracy of a Hofer-like bi-invariant pseudo-metric on the group of strictly contact diffeomorphisms constructed in [BD06]. The topological automorphism group of the contact structure exhibits rigidity properties analogous to those of symplectic diffeomorphisms, including C^0-rigidity of contact and strictly contact diffeomorphisms., Comment: 43 pages; v3: minor corrections, made dependence of contact length and norm on contact form more precise, added proof that different choices of Riemannian metric or contact form lead to equivalent contact distances, updated references, added one new reference

We prove that various classical conformal diffeomorphism groups, which are known to be essential [1], are in fact properly essential. This is a consequence of a local criterion on a conformal diffeomorphism in the form of a cohomological equation. Furthermore, we study the orbit of a tensor field under the action of the conformal diffeomorphism group for these classical conformal structures. On every closed contact manifold, we find conformal contact forms that are not diffeomorphic., Comment: 13 pages

We compute the helicity of a vector field preserving a regular contact form on a closed three-dimensional manifold, and improve results by J.-M. Gambaudo and \'E. Ghys [GG97] relating the helicity of the suspension of a surface isotopy to the Calabi invariant of the latter. Based on these results, we provide positive answers to two questions posed by V. I. Arnold [Arn86]. In the presence of a regular contact form that is also preserved, the helicity extends to an invariant of an isotopy of volume preserving homeomorphisms, and is invariant under conjugation by volume preserving homeomorphisms. A similar statement also holds for suspensions of surface isotopies and surface diffeomorphisms. This requires the techniques of topological Hamiltonian and contact dynamics developed in [MO07, M\"ul08b, Vit06, BS11b, BS11a, MS11]. Moreover, we generalize an example of H. Furstenberg [Fur61] of topologically conjugate but not C^1-conjugate area preserving diffeomorphisms of the two-torus to trivial T^2-bundles, and construct examples of Hamiltonian and contact vector fields that are topologically conjugate but not C^1-conjugate. Higher-dimensional helicities are considered briefly at the end of the paper., Comment: 34 pages; improved presentation and notation, fixed a few minor mistakes and typos

We reformulate the inductive McKay condition, from Isaacs-Malle-Navarro, and apply the new criterion to simple groups of Lie type, when the prime is the defining characteristic p. Thereby we make use of a recent result of Maslowski. This proves that these simple group satisfy the inductive McKay condition for p. In the non simply-laced types and non-classical types this reproves earlier results by Brunat and Brunat-Himstedt., Comment: 12 pages

We prove for finite reductive groups $G$ of classical type, that every irreducible character of $L$ extends to its inertia group in $N$, where $L$ is an abelian centraliser of a Sylow $d$-torus $\mathbf S$ of $G$ and $N:=N_G(\mathbf S)$. This gives a precise description of the irreducible characters of $N$. Furthermore it enables us to verify the McKay conjecture in this situation for $G$ and some primes.

We prove that for regular contact forms there exists a bijective correspondence between the $C^0$ limits of sequences of smooth strictly contact isotopies and the limits with respect to the contact distance of their corresponding Hamiltonians., Comment: Lemma 4.3 from version [v3] is incorrect. We kindly thank an anonymous referee for finding this error. In the new version [v4] the results have been updated accordingly. To appear in Complex Analysis and Dynamical Systems VII, Contemp. Math., 699, Amer. Math. Soc., Providence, RI, 2017

The evolution of open source software projects in Linux distributions offers a remarkable example of a growing complex self-organizing adaptive system, exhibiting Zipf's law over four full decades. We present three tests of the usually assumed ingredients of stochastic growth models that have been previously conjectured to be at the origin of Zipf's law: (i) the growth observed between successive releases of the number of in-directed links of packages obeys Gibrat's law of proportional growth; (ii) the average growth increment of the number of in-directed links of packages over a time interval $\Delta t$ is proportional to $\Delta t$, while its standard deviation is proportional to $\sqrt{\Delta t}$; (iii) the distribution of the number of in-directed links of new packages appearing in evolving versions of Debian Linux distributions has a tail thinner than Zipf's law, with an exponent which converges to the Zipf's law value 1 as the time $\Delta t$ between releases increases., Comment: 4 pages and 4 figures

On any closed symplectic manifold we construct a path-connected neighborhood of the identity in the Hamiltonian diffeomorphism group with the property that each Hamiltonian diffeomorphism in this neighborhood admits a Hofer and spectral length minimizing path to the identity. This neighborhood is open in the $C^1-$topology. The construction utilizes a continuation argument and chain level result in the Floer theory of Lagrangian intersections., Comment: 27 pages