Papers

We study estimation in the low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) regime for a broad class of Gaussian latent-variable models, including Gaussian mixtures and orbit recovery problems. We show that, in this regime, the generalized method-of-moments (GMoM) matches the first-order asymptotic efficiency of maximum likelihood. In particular, if the moment features are chosen up to the minimal local order required for identification and are weighted optimally, then the resulting GMoM estimator has the same leading asymptotic covariance as the maximum-likelihood estimator. Our analysis shows that, in low SNR, this equivalence is governed by a layered local geometry: different directions become informative at different moment orders, partitioning the space into layers with distinct SNR scalings. We prove that the observed Fisher information and the GMoM information operator admit matching layerwise expansions across these layers. As a consequence, in the low-SNR regime, GMoM provides a statistically efficient alternative to maximum likelihood, while preserving the computational advantages of moment-based estimation.

In this note, we give short proofs of three theorems concerning extremal problems in the Johnson scheme, or, in other terminology, on $(n,k,L)$-systems. The main result is a proof of the Aljohani–Bamberg–Cameron conjecture which claims that if $n > n_0(k)$ and there are an $(n,k,L)$-system and an $(n,k,\{0,\dots,k-1\}\setminus L)$-system whose sizes have product $\binom{n}{k}$, then they are a $t$-intersecting family and a Steiner system $S(t,k,n)$ for some $t$.

We derive closed form expressions for the lower expectations that correspond to total variation distance and chi-squared divergence balls around a probability mass function over a finite set.

In this work, we study several inequalities related to a Dirichlet problem on Riemannian manifolds whose Ricci curvature is bounded from below. First, we establish inequalities involving the torsional rigidity and discuss rigidity results characterizing metric balls in this setting. Next, we derive an integral identity associated with a Dirichlet problem, which measures the spherical deficit arising in this context. In particular, we apply this identity to the setting of Einstein manifolds.

We construct canonical extensions of $p$-adic shtukas on integral models of toroidal compactifications of abelian-type Shimura varieties with quasi-parahoric levels at any prime number $p$. More precisely, we define the notion of a log diamond as a $v$-sheaf associated with a log scheme over $\mathbb{Z}_p$ and construct a $p$-adic log shtuka over the log diamond of an integral toroidal compactification of an abelian-type Shimura variety by studying the “degeneration” of the shtuka at the boundary. Moreover, we provide a definition of canonical integral models of toroidal and minimal compactifications in the sense of Pappas and Rapoport, and verify it in the same generality as above. Applications include the canonicity and functoriality of integral toroidal compactifications, as well as an axiomatic proof of the well-positionedness of all well-known stratifications on the special fiber.

Hjort and Glad (1995) present a method for semiparametric density estimation. Relative to the ordinary kernel density estimator, this technique performs much better when a parametric vehicle distribution fits the data, and otherwise performs at broadly the same level. Jones, Linton, and Nielsen (1995) present a somewhat similar method for density estimation which has higher order bias for all sufficiently smooth densities. In this paper, we combine the two methods. We show that, theoretically, the desired properties of general higher order bias allied with even better performance for an appropriate vehicle model are achieved. Simulations suggest that the new estimator realises only a little of its theoretical potential in practice for small to moderately large sample sizes.

We investigate integration by parts (IBP) formulae for stochastic Volterra equations and we establish the smoothing effect of the expectation. Due to the inherent path-dependent dynamics of this class of processes, standard Bismut–Elworthy–Li (BEL) formulae and lifting procedures fail to produce representations for directional derivatives with respect to the initial curve. We exhibit a new type of fractional IBP for these derivatives which, by means of the Riemann–Liouville fractional derivative, interpolates between the standard chain rule and a pure BEL formula with Cameron–Martin path directions. Our assumptions describe precisely the trade-off between the direction's and the test function's regularities. Crucially, we reveal that more roughness leads to more smoothing: for a power-law kernel with Hurst parameter $H\in(0,1/2)$, we show that the expectation is differentiable along constant directions provided that the test function has Hölder continuity $\beta>2H$. The proof of the formula relies on a careful analysis of the conditional expectation's temporal regularity and on the well-posedness of its Riemann–Liouville derivative. We complement these results with a BEL formula along all square integrable directions whenever the noise is additive, a second order BEL formula and an application to forward and rough volatility models. In the latter case, the derivative is interpreted as the sensitivity with respect to the whole initial forward variance curve.

This book examines a number of problems of quantum mechanics, most of which are not usually discussed. What is the origin of probabilities in the mechanics of the microworld? What is the nature of Planck's constant h? What is the nature of probability amplitudes? What is the wave function? A system of axioms for quantum theory is formulated. A model is studied according to which a classical oscillator in a thermostat can be interpreted as a quantum one. The measurement problem is discussed in detail. For advanced undergraduate students, graduate students, and specialists interested in the foundations of quantum theory.

Motivated by Berg's notion of quasi-disjointness for ergodic systems, we introduce and investigate the concept of quasi-disjointness for minimal systems. Several equivalent characterizations are provided. We prove that quasi-disjointness is preserved under taking factors, proximal extensions, and group extensions. As a consequence, we establish that every minimal PI system is quasi-disjoint from all minimal systems. In addition, some variant of quasi-disjointness, namely strong quasi-disjointness is also introduced and examined. Particularly, we prove that each AI system is strongly quasi-disjoint from all minimal systems.

We study the action of the Hecke triangle groups $G_q$ on $\lambda_q \mathbb{Q}(\lambda_q^2) \cup \{\infty\}$ with $\lambda_q = 2 \cos (\pi / q)$. When $q = 18$, we show the existence of infinitely many distinct orbits of fixed points of special hyperbolic elements of $G_q$. We also find new orbits for several other values of $q$. These results provide new examples of special affine pseudo-Anosov homeomorphisms on the unfoldings of regular $q$-gons. In particular, on the unfolding of the regular $18$-gon, there are infinitely many distinct Veech group orbits of directions invariant under a special affine pseudo-Anosov.

We show that any big line bundle on a smooth projective variety admits a special Fujita approximation: the volume and the first Riemann-Roch coefficient are both approximated by those of ample $\mathbb{Q}$-line bundles on higher models. Exploiting previous works by Boucksom, Jonsson and Li, we solve the Boucksom-Jonsson Regularization Conjecture on the Non-Archimedean entropy functional. As a main consequence, we obtain a solution to the (uniform version of the) Yau-Tian-Donaldson Conjecture: a polarized smooth projective variety $(X,L)$ admits a cscK metric if and only if it is $\mathrm{Aut}^\circ(X,L)$-uniformly $K$-stable. This extends the known Yau-Tian-Donaldson correspondence for smooth Fano varieties.

Importance sampling (IS) consists in biasing samples from a distribution $f$ towards another distribution $g$. Concretely, given samples $X_i$ from $f$, the IS measure is $$\hat{g}_n = \frac{1}{Z_n}\sum_{i=1}^n \frac{g(X_i)}{f(X_i)} \delta_{X_i},$$ with $Z_n = \sum_{i=1}^n \frac{g(X_i)}{f(X_i)}$. The random measure $\hat{g}_n$ approximates $g$, and is used in many contexts ranging from Monte Carlo integration to Bayesian inference. We show that, in high dimension ($d \geqslant 3$), the Wasserstein cost $W_p^p(\hat{g}_n, g)$ has order $n^{-p/d}$ in expectation, i.e. $$\beta^{\mathrm{low}}_{p,d}\int gf^{-p/d}\leqslant \liminf_{n \to \infty} n^{p/d} \mathbb{E}[W_p^p(\hat{g}_n, g)] \leqslant \limsup_{n \to \infty} n^{p/d} \mathbb{E}[W_p^p(\hat{g}_n, g)] \leqslant\beta_{p,d} \int g f^{-p/d}$$ where $0<\beta^{\mathrm{low}}_{p,d}\leqslant \beta_{p,d}$ are constants depending only on $p$ and $d$, which are equal for $p=2$ and conjectured to be equal for any $p\geqslant 1$. Our results are valid for all $p\geqslant 1$ and $d\geqslant 3$. In the case where $\beta^{\mathrm{low}}_{p,d} = \beta_{p,d}$, we show that the asymptotically optimal sampling distribution $f^*$ for importance sampling is not equal to $g$ but to a tempered version of $g$, namely $f^* \propto g^{d/(p+d)}$, which is reminiscent of Zador's theorem in the domain of measure quantization.

We review known linear and matrix generalizations of Hall's classic “marriage theorem” and Kőnig's theorem on partial matchings in bipartite graphs, and relate them to linear and matrix generalizations of Dilworth's theorem about chains and antichains in posets and Menger's theorem about disjoint paths in directed graphs.

The shallow-water system is a standard model for long waves in shallow water. The system is hyperbolic and, for a large class of initial data, solutions develop steep gradients leading to shock formation in finite time. Since such singularities violate the long-wave assumptions underlying the model, their appearance limits the regime of validity of the equations. In this work, we introduce a regularized shallow-water system in which the nonlinear terms are modified by a bounded operator. This regularization removes the standard derivative-steepening mechanism responsible for shock formation in the classical system while remaining consistent with the long-wave regime. We establish local well-posedness and small-data global well-posedness in Sobolev spaces that exclude singularity formation. In addition, numerical simulations indicate that the system admits solitary-wave solutions.

A novel mixed spectral-Galerkin method based on generalized ball polynomials is proposed for solving the biharmonic equation on a unit ball. By introducing an auxiliary variable to decouple the biharmonic equation into a system of second-order equations, the corresponding discrete scheme yields a strictly diagonal stiffness matrix, which significantly enhances the computational efficiency. Rigorous a-priori error estimates are established to demonstrate the exponential convergence rates in both the $L^2$- and $H^1$-norms. Extensive numerical experiments are conducted to verify the theoretical analysis and confirm the high efficiency and accuracy of the proposed scheme.

For large $R$, we consider measurable sets $A\subseteq [0,R]^2$ that avoid triples of points of the form $(x,y)$, $(x+t,y)$, $(x,y+1/t)$ with $x,y\in\mathbb{R}$ and $t>0$, i.e., the vertices of upward-oriented, axis-aligned right triangles of area $1/2$. We prove that the measures of such sets satisfy $|A|= O_c(R^2/(\log R)^c)$ for any constant $c<1/4$. An ingredient in the proof is a hyperbolic variant of the two-dimensional trilinear smoothing inequality by Christ, Durcik, and Roos. The aforementioned upper bound is complemented with an example of a set of measure $\Omega(R\log R)$ avoiding the same point configuration. Next, we study measurable sets $A\subseteq [0,R]^2$ that avoid triples of points spanning a triangle of a given fixed area and establish a sharpening of the aforementioned upper bound to any $c<1/2$. This makes partial progress on a question by Erdős, who conjectured an upper bound $O(1)$, and improves over a quantitatively weak $o(R^2)$ result by Graham. The latter proof additionally uses induction on scales to interchangeably control the density and the Riesz energy of the set $A$.

Using the Baxter-Kelland-Wu coupling and the convergence of the height function of the six-vertex model to the Gaussian Free Field, we extract critical exponents for the planar critical random-cluster model at $q=4$, and the planar four-state Potts model.

We use the machinery of a conditional probability space (Rényi, 1955) to obtain an Agreement Theorem (Aumann, 1976) under general conditions. A conditional probability space (CPS) is a family of probability measures defined relative to a family of conditioning events that satisfies concentration and a chain rule. Using this apparatus, we derive an Agreement Theorem that dispenses with the traditional assumptions of a common prior, information partitions, positivity of measure, and knowledge operators. Our treatment can be viewed as "deconstructing" the classic Agreement Theorem, by showing how it can be built up from local probabilistic-epistemic ingredients. The main technical contribution is to define an augmentation procedure for CPSs that adds into the conditioning family all (sub)events that receive probability $1$ – thereby achieving consistency between an agent's information and subjective certainty of events.

We analyze how the interaction between local and nonlocal dispersions, combined with different types of nonlinearities, influences the smoothing effects of solutions. To achieve this goal, we consider a model that generalizes the KdV and Benjamin equations and demonstrate that its solutions exhibit Kato's smoothing effect and satisfy the propagation of regularity principle. As a result, we confirm that the higher-order dispersive term determines the local gain of fractional regularity of solutions. Our results are general; they not only recover known results for the KdV and Benjamin equations, but also provide new insights for a broader family of models of physical and mathematical interest with polynomial dispersions of arbitrary order.

All reduced descendent Gromov-Witten invariants of $K3$ and abelian surfaces in primitive curve classes can be calculated by the methods of \cite{BOPY,MPT}. To handle the imprimitive curve classes, a multiple cover formula was conjectured in \cite{ObPand} for $K3$ surfaces and in \cite{O_NLGW} for abelian surfaces. We prove here that both descendent multiple cover formulas are implied by the conjectural families GW/PT correspondence for semipositive relative 3-folds with primary insertions. The implication is proven by showing that the multiple cover formula for $S$ can be recast as a property of an appropriate localization vertex for the relative 3-fold Gromov-Witten theory of $(S\times \mathbb{P}^1/S_0 \cup S_\infty)$. The families GW/PT correspondence then transfers the multiple cover formula from the Gromov-Witten side to the stable pairs side where the formula is proven geometrically by studying cosections and applying universality properties. Along the way, we prove a DT/PT correspondence for the reduced theories of $(S\times \mathbb{P}^1/S_0 \cup S_\infty)$ using the wallcrossing techniques of Kuhn-Liu-Thimm \cite{KLT2,KLT}.

We introduce a one dimensional spin $\frac{1}{2}$ Hamiltonian with multi-site interactions, but still local. The algebra of its Hamiltonian densities resembles that of the transverse field Ising model. Using this fact we show that its spectrum is free-fermionic but with a huge degeneracy for each level. The source of the degeneracy is a set of local conserved quantities that act like a classical background field for the quantum system. The thermodynamics of this system is contrasted with the standard Ising model. At the gapless points in the energy spectrum, we show that this system can be derived from the quantum inverse scattering method adapted to a multi-site generalization of the Yang-Baxter equation as introduced by E. Rowell and Z. Wang. The $R$-matrix is constructed using generators of extraspecial 2-groups. This helps us extract all the conserved charges and lay the framework for a general mechanism to generate such multi-site interaction spin systems that are transverse field Ising models under the hood. A remark on how to obtain P. Fendley's free-fermion in disguise models in this formalism is also included.

This note studies the quantized corner structure of four-dimensional $BF$ theory, classifies the associated free and physical corner algebras and constructs possible representations. In the abelian case, for arbitrary closed oriented surfaces and in the presence or absence of a cosmological term, explicit presentations of the corner algebras are obtained in terms of generators and relations, identifying them as infinite-dimensional oscillator-type Lie algebras with an abelian summand. A construction of infinite families of simple modules via bosonic Fock space representations is provided. In the non-abelian case on the torus, the corner algebras are described as quotients constructed from the central extensions of double-loop algebras over certain non-semisimple Lie algebras. A construction of infinite families of simple Fock-type modules of the free corner algebra via an induced module procedure is also provided. The resulting modules descend only trivially to the physical quotient, revealing an obstruction in the present construction in the non-abelian setting.

Developing high-order numerical schemes for two-phase flow in porous media that preserve key physical properties remains a significant challenge in numerical analysis. In this article, we propose a general framework to construct fully discrete first- and second-order numerical schemes for thermodynamically consistent model of incompressible and immiscible two-phase flow in porous media. The proposed schemes are rigorously proved to ensure five fundamental properties: (i) unique solvability; (ii) full decoupling; (iii) bound preservation for both phases; (iv) original energy dissipation; (v) local mass conservation for both phases. The key to ensure the unique solvability lies in guaranteeing the strict convexity of the discrete energy functionals associated with the constructed schemes. Departing from the coupled solution approach for the pressure and saturation variables, the proposed approach breaks traditional paradigm by subtracting the two-phase mass conservation equations to derive a fully decoupled system. In addition, the bound-preserving property for both phases is established by leveraging the singular nature of the logarithmic term around the limit values of $0$ and $1$. A rigorous error estimate for the first-order scheme, in the $\ell^{\infty}(0,T; H_h^{-1} (\Omega)) \cap \ell^{2}(0,T; \ell^2(\Omega))$ norm for the saturations of two phases, is established. Finally, various numerical examples are presented to verify the theoretical results and demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed schemes.

Superimposed pilot (SIP) transmission improves spectral efficiency by eliminating the dedicated pilot overhead required in orthogonal pilot (OP)-based schemes. However, SIP suffers from severe pilot-data coupling, which leads to a critical performance-complexity bottleneck at the receiver. To address this issue, this paper proposes a low-overhead transmission framework that revitalizes data-dependent superimposed training (DDST) with enhanced interference mitigation strategies. First, for quasi-static block-fading channels, an enhanced DDST receiver is developed to achieve non-iterative pilot-data decoupling by exploiting data-dependent algebraic structures. Second, to overcome the sensitivity of conventional DDST to channel variations and symbol misidentification in fast time-varying environments, a mix transmission scheme is developed. By strategically applying DDST to a subset of resource elements, the proposed scheme combines the interference-free transmission property of OP with the zero-pilot-overhead advantage of SIP, thereby improving demapping reliability and interference suppression. Furthermore, under the proposed mix scheme, a Vision Transformer-based neural receiver is designed to capture the orthogonal structure between pilots and perturbation-bearing data, as well as the underlying channel correlations, thereby relaxing the stringent quasi-static assumption required for interference disentanglement. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed framework achieves significant performance gains in the low-to-medium SNR regime under time-varying channels while providing superior computational efficiency compared with state-of-the-art SIP receivers.

We study positive solutions of the Dirichlet problem $-\Delta u = u^p$ in a uniformly convex domain $\Omega \subset \mathbb S^2$, $u= 0$ on $\partial\Omega.$ For $p=1$, we assume that the right-hand side is replaced by $\lambda_1 u$, where $\lambda_1$ is the first eigenvalue of $-\Delta$ on $\Omega$ with zero Dirichlet boundary condition. We prove that for $0 \leq p < 1$ the unique positive solution $u$ is such that $u^{\frac{1-p}{2}}$ is strictly concave in $\Omega$, while for $1 < p \leq 3$ every positive solution $u$ is such that $u^{\frac{1-p}{2}}$ is strictly convex in $\Omega.$ For $p=0,$ our result gives the strict $1/2-$concavity of the torsion function in $\Omega.$ For $p=1,$ a result due to Lee and Wang gives the strict log-concavity of the first eigenfunction in $\Omega.$ As a consequence, for each $0 \leq p \leq 3,$ any positive solution has strictly convex superlevel sets and a unique nondegenerate maximum.

We study the complex spectrum of the partial theta function \[ \Theta(q,x)=\sum_{j=0}^{\infty}q^{j(j+1)/2}x^j, \qquad |q|<1, \] where a spectral value is a parameter for which \(\Theta(q,\cdot)\) has a multiple zero. Since the function is defined here only for \(|q|<1\), all spectral values are strictly inside the unit disk; boundary points on \(|q|=1\) occur only as accumulation points of the spectrum. The paper combines two complementary points of view. Near the unit circle we prove that every point of \(|q|=1\) is an accumulation point of the spectrum; the proof uses explicit spectral factors of truncations, the Jacobi triple product, and a boundary-window lifting argument near roots of unity. Inside a fixed subdisk, illustrated for \(|q|\leq 0.8\), the true spectrum is locally finite and must be separated carefully from the much larger branch loci of truncations and Jensen polynomials. We give a truncation-seeded Newton procedure which produces a discrete list of candidate spectral values, explain the caustic/escaping-root mechanism in finite approximants, and record numerical monodromy experiments using a radial convention: for a spectral point \(q_*\), roots are labelled at the point \(0.1q_*/|q_*|\) on the small circle and then continued along the straight radial segment to \(q_*\). This convention gives a coherent set of collision labels in the disk, treats negative real spectral values from the base point \(-0.1\), and leads to a preliminary rational-direction heuristic for radial monodromy.

We characterize all lattices $\Lambda \subset \mathbb{R}^2$ and all compactly supported functions $g \in L^2(\mathbb{R})$ for which the Gabor system $\left \{ e^{2\pi i s x} g(x-t) : (t,s) \in \Lambda \right \}$ forms an orthonormal basis for $L^2(\mathbb{R})$. The characterization is given in geometric terms through translation tilings and discreteness properties of lattice projections. In particular, this resolves a conjecture of Han and Wang on the non-existence of Gabor bases along specific irrational lattices. Finally, we construct Gabor bases that cannot be realized by any product set, answering a problem of Iosevich and Mayeli.

We develop dimension-reduction-free tests for the slope function in functional linear regression when the functional regressor may be endogenous or measured with error. The tests are based on a functional moment condition induced by an auxiliary functional variable and do not require estimation of the slope function, providing a functional analogue of Anderson–Rubin-type moment testing. They remain asymptotically valid under weak or even failed relevance of the auxiliary variable: such relevance affects power, not size. The trade-off is that power is confined to alternatives detectable through the moment operator, a subspace we characterize explicitly. We establish the asymptotic null distribution, consistency against detectable alternatives, and local power under drifting alternatives. We also derive the locally optimal test within a class of weighted test statistics. Feasible critical values for implementation of the tests are obtained from data. Simulations show reliable size control and competitive power, including under weak relevance. We illustrate the method using a functional regression analysis of residential electricity demand and temperature distributions in South Korea.

We consider $N\times N$ matrices $X$ with i.i.d. entries, and prove that the random measure $\mu_N(z):=\frac{ | \det (X-z)|^\gamma}{\mathbb{E}[ | \det (X-z)|^\gamma]} \mathrm{d} z\mathrm{d} \overline{z}$ converges to the Gaussian Multiplicative Chaos (GMC) on the unit disc in the full subcritical regime $\gamma \in (0, 2 \sqrt{2})$ as $N \to \infty$. Our result holds for both symmetry classes and in particular is new even for real Ginibre matrices. This result is the first of its kind for any non-invariant ensemble of random matrices. In the case of real matrices, we further prove that the restriction of $\mu_N(z)$ to the unit interval converges to a one-dimensional GMC. We establish the asymptotics for the $K$-point function of $| \det (X-z)|$ at any collection of mesoscopically separated points $z_i$. Our methods are analytic and probabilistic in nature, relying in part on the dynamical approach based on Dyson Brownian motion.

The $k$-local Hamiltonian problem is a central model for quantum many-body systems and Hamiltonian complexity. Semidefinite programming and noncommutative sum-of-squares hierarchies provide systematic certificates for ground-state energies, but existing finite-convergence results give no quantitative guarantee on the accuracy of the low hierarchy levels accessible in computation. We prove explicit finite-level convergence rates for these hierarchies in the Pauli setting. For $k$-local Hamiltonians whose Pauli expansion contains only even-weight terms, we show that both the NPA-type lower-bound hierarchy and the upper-bound hierarchy on the spectral minimum have error at most $C(k)\xi^{n,4}_{d+1}/n$, where $\xi^{n,4}_{d+1}$ is the smallest root of a Krawtchouk polynomial and $C(k)$ is independent of the number of qubits $n$ and the hierarchy level $d$. General $k$-local Hamiltonians reduce to this even-weight case by adding one ancilla qubit while preserving the spectrum. The proof constructs almost-reproducing kernels for the Pauli algebra and relates their spectra to Krawtchouk polynomials, giving a noncommutative analogue of recent kernel-based convergence analyses for commutative polynomial optimization. These results provide the first quantitative finite-level accuracy guarantees for noncommutative semidefinite relaxations of Pauli Hamiltonians.