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The recent notion of $q$-deformed irrational numbers is characterized by the invariance with respect to the action of the modular group $\PSL(2,\Z)$, or equivalently under the Burau representation of the braid group~$B_3$. The theory of $q$-deformed quadratic irrationals and quadratic equations with integer coefficients is known and entirely based on this invariance. In this paper, we consider the case of cubic irrationals. We show that irreducible cubic equations with three distinct real roots and cyclic Galois group~$C_3$ (or $\Z/3\Z$) acting by a third order element of $\PSL(2,\Z)$, have a canonical $q$-deformation, that we describe. This class of cubic equations contains well-known examples including the equations that describe regular $7$- and $9$-gons., Comment: 13 pages

$q$-deformed real numbers are power series with integer coefficients. We study Stieltjes and Jacobi type continued fraction expansions of $q$-deformed real numbers and find many new examples of such continued fractions. We also investigate the corresponding sequences of Hankel determinants and find an infinite family of power series for which several of the first sequences of Hankel determinants consist of $-1,0$ and $1$ only. These Hankel sequences satisfy Somos and Gale-Robinson recurrences., Comment: Second and final version, 31 pages, to appear in Adv. in Appl. Math. We have mainly simplified the presentation, clarified some statements, and corrected and improved the main conjecture

We establish a link between the new theory of $q$-deformed rational numbers and the classical Burau representation of the braid group $\mathrm{B}_3$. We apply this link to the open problem of classification of faithful complex specializations of this representation. As a result we provide an answer to this problem in terms of the singular set of the $q$-rationals and prove the faithfulness of the Burau representation specialized at complex $t\in \mathbb{C}^*$ outside the annulus $3-2\sqrt2 \leq |t| \leq 3+2\sqrt2.$

We introduce a superanalogue of the classical Markov equation. This equation characterizes the ``shadow Markov numbers'' recently considered by one of us. We show that this equation is characterized by invariance by cluster algebra mutations., Comment: 7 pages

This paper is an attempt to apply the tools of supergeometry to arithmetic. Supergeometric objects are defined over supercommutative rings of coefficients, and we consider an integral ring with exactly two odd variables. In this case the even quantities, such as numbers and continued fractions, are doubled, having both a classical and a nilpotent part. We refer to the nilpotent part as the shadow. We investigate the notions of supersymmetric continued fractions and the orthosymplectic modular group and make some initial steps toward studying their properties., Comment: 18 pages, 3 figures

We formulate the following general problem. To the best of our knowledge, it is open and has not previously been considered. It seems (at least to us!) to be difficult; at any rate, more difficult than enumerating the dissections themselves. Enumerate the distinct quiddities of dissections of the $N$-gon into $m$ cells., Comment: 11 pages

The following general idea looks crazy. What if another integer sequence follows each integer sequence like a shadow? I will demonstrate that this is indeed the case, perhaps not for every integer sequence, but for many of them., Comment: 6 pages

This is an elementary explanation of a cubic composition formula due to Ramanujan.

We study a $2 \times 2$ matrix equation arising naturally in the theory of Coxeter frieze patterns. It is formulated in terms of the generators of the group $\mathrm{PSL}(2,\mathbb{Z})$ and is closely related to continued fractions. It appears in a number of different areas, for example, toric varieties. We count its positive solutions, obtaining a series of integer sequences, some known and some new. This extends classical work of Conway and Coxeter proving that the first of these sequences is the Catalan numbers., Comment: 34 pages

This work is a first step towards a theory of "$q$-deformed complex numbers". Assuming the invariance of the $q$-deformation under the action of the modular group I prove the existence and uniqueness of the operator of translations by~$i$ compatible with this action. Obtained in such a way $q$-deformed Gaussian integers have interesting properties and are related to the Chebyshev polynomials., Comment: 21 pages

We study analytic properties of ``$q$-deformed real numbers'', a notion recently introduced by two of us. A $q$-deformed positive real number is a power series with integer coefficients in one formal variable~$q$. We study the radius of convergence of these power series assuming that $q$ is a complex variable. Our main conjecture, which can be viewed as a $q$-analogue of Hurwitz's Irrational Number Theorem, claims that the $q$-deformed golden ratio has the smallest radius of convergence among all real numbers. The conjecture is proved for certain class of rational numbers and confirmed by a number of computer experiments. We also prove the explicit lower bounds for the radius of convergence for the $q$-deformed convergents of golden and silver ratios., Comment: 16 pages, 1 figure

We explain the notion of "$q$-deformed real numbers" introduced in our previous work and overview their main properties. We will also introduce $q$-deformed Conway-Coxeter friezes., Comment: 12 pages, 2 figures

This article is a collection of several memories for a special issue of SIGMA devoted to Dmitry Borisovich Fuchs.

We associate a formal power series with integer coefficients to a positive real number, we interpret this series as a "$q$-analogue of a real." The construction is based on the notion of $q$-deformed rational number introduced in arXiv:1812.00170. Extending the construction to negative real numbers, we obtain certain Laurent series.

We consider moduli spaces of cyclic configurations of $N$ lines in a $2n$-dimensional symplectic vector space, such that every set of $n$ consecutive lines generates a Lagrangian subspace. We study geometric and combinatorial problems related to these moduli spaces, and prove that they are isomorphic to quotients of spaces of symmetric linear difference operators with monodromy $-1$. The symplectic cross-ratio is an invariant of two pairs of $1$-dimensional subspaces of a symplectic vector space. For $N = 2n+2$, the moduli space of Lagrangian configurations is parametrized by $n+1$ symplectic cross-ratios. These cross-ratios satisfy a single remarkable relation, related to tridiagonal determinants and continuants, given by the Pfaffian of a Gram matrix., Comment: 29 pages, minor revisions and corrections

We introduce a notion of $q$-deformed rational numbers and $q$-deformed continued fractions. A $q$-deformed rational is encoded by a triangulation of a polygon and can be computed recursively. The recursive formula is analogous to the $q$-deformed Pascal identitiy for the Gaussian binomial coefficients, but the Pascal triangle is replaced by the Farey graph. The coefficients of the polynomials defining the $q$-rational count quiver subrepresentations of the maximal indecomposable representation of the graph dual to the triangulation. Several other properties, such as total positivity properties, $q$-deformation of the Farey graph, matrix presentations and $q$-continuants are given, as well as a relation to the Jones polynomial of rational knots.

We reformulate several known results about continued fractions in combinatorial terms. Among them the theorem of Conway and Coxeter and that of Series, both relating continued fractions and triangulations. More general polygon dissections appear when extending these theorems for elements of the modular group $PSL(2,\mathbb{Z})$. These polygon dissections are interpreted as walks in the Farey tessellation. The combinatorial model of continued fractions can be further developed to obtain a canonical presentation of elements of $PSL(2,\mathbb{Z})$.

We develop a version of cluster algebra extending the ring of Laurent polynomials by adding Grassmann variables. These algebras can be described in terms of `extended quivers' which are oriented hypergraphs. We describe mutations of such objects and define a corresponding commutative superalgebra. Our construction includes the notion of weighted quivers that has already appeared in different contexts. This paper is a step of understanding the notion of cluster superalgebra, Comment: Final version, to appear in Electron. Res. Announc. Math. Sci., 14 pages. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1503.01894

We characterize sequences of positive integers $(a_1,a_2,\ldots,a_n)$ for which the $2\times2$ matrix $\left( \begin{array}{cc} a_n&-1 1&0 \end{array} \right) \left( \begin{array}{cc} a_{n-1}&-1 1&0 \end{array} \right) \cdots \left( \begin{array}{cc} a_1&-1 1&0 \end{array} \right) $ is either the identity matrix $\mathrm Id$, its negative $-\mathrm Id$, or square root of $-\mathrm Id$. This extends a theorem of Conway and Coxeter that classifies such solutions subject to a total positivity restriction., Comment: final version

We introduce and study a cyclically invariant polynomial which is an analog of the classical tridiagonal determinant usually called the continuant. We prove that this polynomial can be calculated as the Pfaffian of a skew-symmetric matrix. We consider the corresponding Diophantine equation and prove an analog of a famous result due to Conway and Coxeter. We also observe that Chebyshev polynomials of the first kind arise as Pfaffians., Comment: 8 pages

We investigate a general method that allows one to construct new integer sequences extending existing ones. We apply this method to the classic Somos-4 and Somos-5, and the Gale-Robinson sequences, as well as to more general class of sequences introduced by Fordy and Marsh, and produce a great number of new sequences. The method is based on the notion of "weighted quiver", a quiver with a $\mathbb Z$-valued function on the set of vertices that obeys very special rules of mutation.

We consider tangent cones of Schubert varieties in the complete flag variety, and investigate the problem when the tangent cones of two different Schubert varieties coincide. We give a sufficient condition for such coincidence, and formulate a conjecture that provides a necessary condition. In particular, we show that all Schubert varieties corresponding to the Coxeter elements of the Weyl group have the same tangent cone. Our main tool is the notion of pillar entries in the rank matrix counting the dimensions of the intersections of a given flag with the standard one. This notion is a version of Fulton's essential set. We calculate the dimension of a Schubert variety in terms of the pillar entries of the rank matrix., Comment: Major changes in the main theorem and conjecture of version 1

We show equivalence of two old classification theorems: Dickson's classification of quadratic forms over ${\mathbb F}_2$, and Chevalley's classification of real Clifford algebras.

We introduce a class of commutative superalgebras generalizing cluster algebras. A cluster superalgebra is defined by a hypergraph called an "extended quiver", and transformations called mutations. We prove the super analog of the "Laurent phenomenon", i.e., that all elements of a given cluster superalgebra are Laurent polynomials in the initial variables, and find an invariant presymplectic form. Examples of cluster superalgebras are provided by superanalogs of Coxeter's frieze patterns. We apply the Laurent phenomenon to construct a new integer sequence extending the Somos-$4$ sequence., Comment: 29 pages

We introduce a supersymmetric analog of the classical Coxeter frieze patterns. Our approach is based on the relation with linear difference operators. We define supersymmetric analogs of linear difference operators called Hill's operators. The space of these "superfriezes" is an algebraic supervariety, which is isomorphic to the space of supersymmetric second order difference equations, called Hill's equations., Comment: Appendix 2 on Supercontinuants is written by Alexey Ustinov

The notion of $SL_2$-tiling is a generalization of that of classical Coxeter-Conway frieze pattern. We classify doubly antiperiodic $SL_2$-tilings that contain a rectangular domain of positive integers. Every such $SL_2$-tiling corresponds to a pair of frieze patterns and a unimodular $2\times2$-matrix with positive integer coefficients. We relate this notion to triangulated $n$-gons in the Farey graph., Comment: 5 figures

We show that the space of classical Coxeter's frieze patterns can be viewed as a discrete version of a coadjoint orbit of the Virasoro algebra. The canonical (cluster) (pre)symplectic form on the space of frieze patterns is a discretization of the Kirillov symplectic form. We relate a continuous version of frieze patterns to conformal metrics of constant curvature in dimension 2., Comment: typos corrected

We study the space of linear difference equations with periodic coefficients and (anti)periodic solutions. We show that this space is isomorphic to the space of tame frieze patterns and closely related to the moduli space of configurations of points in the projective space. We define the notion of combinatorial Gale transform which is a duality between periodic difference equations of different orders. We describe periodic rational maps generalizing the classical Gauss map.

We consider a contact manifold with a pseudo-Riemannian metric and define a contact vector field intrinsically associated to this pair of structures. We call this new differential invariant the contact Riemannian curl. On a Riemannian manifold, Killing vector fields are those that annihilate the metric; a Killing $1$-form is obtained from a Killing vector field by lowering indices. We show that the contact Riemannian curl vanishes if the metric is of constant curvature and the contact structure is defined by a Killing $1$-form. We also show that the contact Riemannian curl has a strong similarity with the Schwarzian derivative since it depends only on the projective equivalence class of the metric. For the Laplace-Beltrami operator on a contact manifold, the contact Riemannian curl is proportional to the subsymbol defined in arXiv:1205.6562. We also show that the contact Riemannian curl vanishes on the (co)tangent bundle over a Riemannian manifold. This implies that the corresponding subsymbol of the Laplace-Beltrami operator is identically zero., Comment: 16 pages, Theorem 5.2.1 corrected

We consider a family, $\mathcal{F}$, of subsets of an $n$-set such that the cardinality of the symmetric difference of any two elements $F,F'\in\mathcal{F}$ is not a multiple of 4. We prove that the maximal size of $\mathcal{F}$ is bounded by $2n$, unless $n\equiv{}3\mod4$ when it is bounded by $2n+2$. Our method uses cubic forms on $\mathbb{F}_2^n$ and the Hurwitz-Radon theory of square identities. We also apply this theory to obtain some information about boolean cubic forms and so-called additive quadruples.

We consider differential operators between sections of arbitrary powers of the determinant line bundle over a contact manifold. We extend the standard notions of the Heisenberg calculus: noncommutative symbolic calculus, the principal symbol, and the contact order to such differential operators. Our first main result is an intrinsically defined "subsymbol" of a differential operator, which is a differential invariant of degree one lower than that of the principal symbol. In particular, this subsymbol associates a contact vector field to an arbitrary second order linear differential operator. Our second main result is the construction of a filtration that strengthens the well-known contact order filtration of the Heisenberg calculus.

We describe pairs (p,n) such that n-dimensional affine space is fibered by pairwise skew p-dimensional affine subspaces. The problem is closely related with the theorem of Adams on vector fields on spheres and the Hurwitz-Radon theory of composition of quadratic forms.

Orthogonal designs are fundamental mathematical notions used in the construction of space time block codes for wireless transmissions. Designs have two important parameters, the rate and the decoding delay; the main problem of the theory is to construct designs maximizing the rate and minimizing the decoding delay. All known constructions of CODs are inductive or algorithmic. In this paper, we present an explicit construction of optimal CODs. We do not apply recurrent procedures and do calculate the matrix elements directly. Our formula is based on a cubic function in two binary n-vectors. In our previous work (Comm. Math. Phys., 2010, and J. Pure and Appl. Algebra, 2011), we used this function to define a series of non-associative algebras generalizing the classical algebra of octonions and to obtain sum of squares identities of Hurwitz-Radon type.

We define the notions of trace, determinant and, more generally, Berezinian of matrices over a (Z_2)^n graded commutative associative algebra. The applications include a new approach to the classical theory of matrices with coefficients in a Clifford algebra, in particular of quaternionic matrices. In a special case, we recover the classical Dieudonn\'e determinant of quaternionic matrices, but in general our quaternionic determinant is different. We show that the graded determinant of purely even (Z_2)^n graded matrices of degree 0 is polynomial in its entries. In the case of the algebra of quaternions, we calculate the formula for the Berezinian in terms of a product of quasiminors in the sense of Gelfand, Retakh, and Wilson. The graded trace is related to the graded Berezinian (and determinant) by a (Z_2)^n graded version of Liouville's formula., Comment: 36 pages; added references, corrected typos

The pentagram map is a discrete dynamical system defined on the moduli space of polygons in the projective plane. This map has recently attracted a considerable interest, mostly because its connection to a number of different domains, such as: classical projective geometry, algebraic combinatorics, moduli spaces, cluster algebras and integrable systems. Integrability of the pentagram map was conjectured by R. Schwartz and later proved by V. Ovsienko, R. Schwartz and S. Tabachnikov for a larger space of twisted polygons. In this paper, we prove the initial conjecture that the pentagram map is completely integrable on the moduli space of closed polygons. In the case of convex polygons in the real projective plane, this result implies the existence of a toric foliation on the moduli space. The leaves of the foliation carry affine structure and the dynamics of the pentagram map is quasi-periodic. Our proof is based on an invariant Poisson structure on the space of twisted polygons. We prove that the Hamiltonian vector fields corresponding to the monodoromy invariants preserve the space of closed polygons and define an invariant affine structure on the level surfaces of the monodromy invariants., Comment: a revised version. with minor changes to clarify some points

In this paper we construct a graded Lie algebra on the space of cochains on a $\mathbbZ_2$-graded vector space that are skew-symmetric in the odd variables. The Lie bracket is obtained from the classical Gerstenhaber bracket by (partial) skew-symmetrization; the coboundary operator is a skew-symmetrized version of the Hochschild differential. We show that an order-one element $m$ satisfying the zero-square condition $[m,m]=0$ defines an algebraic structure called "Lie antialgebra". The cohomology (and deformation) theory of these algebras is then defined. We present two examples of non-trivial cohomology classes which are similar to the celebrated Gelfand-Fuchs and Godbillon-Vey classes., Comment: 23 pages

We study the space of 2-frieze patterns generalizing that of the classical Coxeter-Conway frieze patterns. The geometric realization of this space is the space of n-gons (in the projective plane and in 3-dimensional vector space) which is a close relative of the moduli space of genus 0 curves with n marked points. We show that the space of 2-frieze patterns is a cluster manifold and study its algebraic and arithmetic properties., Comment: 36 pages, 4 figures, minor changes from the previous versions; references added (v2), section 5.5 added (v3), picture added (v4)

The Hurwitz problem of composition of quadratic forms, or of "sum of squares identity" is tackled with the help of a particular class of $(\mathbb{Z}_2)^n$-graded non-associative algebras generalizing the octonions. This method provides an explicit formula for the classical Hurwitz-Radon identity and leads to new solutions in a neighborhood of the Hurwitz-Radon identity., Comment: 13 pages, 2 figures, final version to appear in J. Pure Appl. Alg

We study non-associative twisted group algebras over $(\Z_2)^n$ with cubic twisting functions. We construct a series of algebras that extend the classical algebra of octonions in the same way as the Clifford algebras extend the algebra of quaternions. We study their properties, give several equivalent definitions and prove their uniqueness within some natural assumptions. We then prove a simplicity criterion. We present two applications of the constructed algebras and the developed technique. The first application is a simple explicit formula for the following famous square identity: $(a_1^2+...+a_{N}^2)\,(b_1^2+...+b_{\rho(N)}^2)= c_1^2+...+c_{N}^2$, where $c_k$ are bilinear functions of the $a_i$ and $b_j$ and where $\rho(n)$ is the Hurwitz-Radon function. The second application is the relation to Moufang loops and, in particular, to the code loops. To illustrate this relation, we provide an explicit coordinate formula for the factor set of the Parker loop., Comment: 36 pages, 5 figures, final version, to appear in CMP

We consider $\G$-graded commutative algebras, where $\G$ is an abelian group. Starting from a remarkable example of the classical algebra of quaternions and, more generally, an arbitrary Clifford algebra, we develop a general viewpoint on the subject. We then give a recent classification result and formulate an open problem.

We study the notion of $\Gamma$-graded commutative algebra for an arbitrary abelian group $\Gamma$. The main examples are the Clifford algebras already treated by Albuquerque and Majid. We prove that the Clifford algebras are the only simple finite-dimensional associative graded commutative algebras over $\mathbb{R}$ or $\mathbb{C}$. Our approach also leads to non-associative graded commutative algebras extending the Clifford algebras., Comment: References added