Papers

We study a broad class of anisotropic Dirichlet problems driven by the nonhomogeneous operator \[ \mathcal L_Au=-\sum_{i=1}^N\partial_i\!\left( a_i(|\partial_i u|^{p_i})|\partial_i u|^{p_i-2} \partial_i u\right), \] where the functions $a_i$ satisfy structural growth and monotonicity conditions of $(p_i,q_i)$-type. This framework contains, among other examples, the anisotropic $\vec p$-Laplacian, the orthotropic $p\&q$-Laplacian, and anisotropic operators combining several directional growth regimes. We first establish a comparison principle adapted to this lack of homogeneity. For power nonlinearities, including the singular range, we then obtain nonexistence, existence, singular uniqueness, comparison alternatives, and multiplicity results according to the position of the reaction exponent relative to the anisotropic growth and critical exponents. In particular, an intermediate power regime exhibits nonexistence for small positive parameters and two distinct nontrivial solutions for large parameters without additional restrictions on the smallest effective exponent. At partial resonance, $r=p_1<p_N$, we identify an exact positive parameter threshold: there are no nontrivial solutions at or below it, whereas each parameter above it admits infinitely many pairs of solutions converging strongly to zero. We also treat concave–convex reactions with subcritical or critical growth and prove the existence of nontrivial nonnegative weak solutions in the corresponding parameter ranges. The arguments combine a convexity method of Díaz–Saa type, anisotropic Sobolev embeddings, direct minimization, Ekeland's variational principle, mountain-pass techniques, and concentration–compactness.

In this paper, we characterize surjective nonlinear composition operators acting between the space of sequences of bounded variation and the space of bounded sequences. We show that their generators exhibit highly pathological behavior. To complement this, we construct explicit examples, confirming that such exotic objects do in fact exist.

This paper investigates the boundary stabilization of a linear hyperbolic system with a zero characteristic speed. We address a case that cannot be stabilized by proportional boundary feedback and develop a backstepping design for the critical setting where the zero-speed subsystem has no intrinsic dissipation. To this end, we construct a Volterra transformation leading to a nonstandard integro-differential target system. Its asymptotic stability in L2 is established by both the Lyapunov-LaSalle method and a spectral semigroup argument. The backstepping kernel equations are explicitly solved, yielding an explicit boundary feedback law that asymptotically stabilizes the original system. Numerical simulations are provided to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed control design.

Norin and Steiner recently proved the Linear Hadwiger Conjecture. That is, there is an absolute constant $C$ such that every graph $G$ satisfies $\chi(G)\leqslant C\,\text{had}(G)$, where $\chi(G)$ is the chromatic number and $\text{had}(G)$ is the Hadwiger number of $G$. They estimate that their proof gives a non-optimised constant $C$ of order $10^{100}$. This paper uses AI assistance to optimise their argument, and shows that every graph $G$ satisfies $\chi(G)\,\leqslant\,1{,}118{,}430\,\text{had}(G)$.

We prove an exact identity, as convergent logarithmic germs at large Euclidean momentum, between the equal-mass two-dimensional $(n-1)$-loop sunset Feynman integral, with $n\geq4$, and the genus-zero one-point descendant invariants of the local Calabi–Yau $n$-fold $X_n=\operatorname{Tot}(K_{F_n})$, where $F_n\subset(\mathbb P^1)^{n}$ is a smooth $(1,\ldots,1)$ hypersurface. Writing $s$ for the momentum variable and $y=-1/s$, the identity reads \[ I^{(n-1)}_{\circleddash}(s)=(-1)^{n-1}yA\,\Bigl[nR^{n-1}-\theta_Q{\mathcal D}_0^\Delta\,R^{n-2} +\sum_{j=0}^{n-3}c_jR^j\Bigr], \] where $R=\log y+O(y)$ is the local mirror coordinate, $A=\theta_yR$, $Q=e^R$, ${\mathcal D}_0^\Delta(Q)$ is the primary one-point potential, and each $c_j$ has the form \[ c_j=c_j^{(0)}+\sum_{a=0}^{n-2}\bigl(c_{j,a}\,{\mathcal D}_a^\Delta(Q) +c'_{j,a}\,\theta_Q{\mathcal D}_a^\Delta(Q)\bigr) \] with the coefficients in $\mathbb Q[\zeta(3),\zeta(5),\ldots]$ the odd zeta values coming from the Gamma class. The descendant series ${\mathcal D}_a^\Delta(Q)$ are given explicitly by the ambient hypergeometric series and the inverse mirror map. We also prove global univalence of the principal mirror map, with explicit upper and lower bounds on the $Q$-Taylor radii, extract the full primary evaluation divisor and its integral cover transform, and reduce the ambient endpoint constants to a finite universal Gamma-class part and $\lfloor(n-1)/2\rfloor$ real parameters.

We determine the equal-mass two-dimensional three- and four-loop sunset Feynman integrals $I^{(3)}_\circleddash$ and $I^{(4)}_\circleddash$ at large Euclidean momentum in terms of the genus-zero Gromov–Witten theory of the local Calabi–Yau fourfold and fivefold $X_L=\operatorname{Tot}(K_{F_L})$, where $F_L\subset(\mathbb P^1)^{L+1}$, $L=3,4$, is a smooth hypersurface of multidegree $(1,\ldots,1)$. At two loops the sunset integral is governed by the prepotential of a local Calabi–Yau threefold. For $L\geq3$ the moduli spaces of unmarked stable maps have positive virtual dimension and there is no prepotential, therefore the Feynman integral is governed instead by the one-point potential $\mathcal F_{\gamma_L}$ with insertion $\gamma_L=H^{L-1}/(L-1)!$, by its gravitational descendants, and by $\zeta(3)$ boundary terms coming from the Gamma class. At both loop orders the coefficient of $R^{L-1}$ in the Frobenius expansion in the mirror coordinate $R$ is $-\theta_Q\mathcal F_{\gamma_L}$ with the Novikov variable $Q=\exp(R)$. At three loops the whole Feynman integral is an explicit expression in $\mathcal F_{\gamma_3}$ alone, because genus-zero recursion determines all descendant series from it; at four loops two diagonal series suffice, and the $\zeta(3)$ term is itself corrected by $\theta_Q\mathcal F_{\gamma_4}$. At three loops we also derive the analytic normalization independently, from the Picard–Fuchs equation and the polar part of a Mellin transform, prove integrality of the multiple-cover transforms for arbitrary integral insertions together with an explicit quantum-$K$ formula, and compute the exact period connection polynomials. Finally we give endpoint values along the Euclidean axis, bounds on the Taylor radii in the Novikov variable $Q$, a computer-assisted proof of the four-loop endpoint nonanalyticity, and a comparison of the normalizations at two, three and four loops.

Stagnation in the summation of floating-point numbers occurs when the running sum, or the accumulator, does not change its value despite addends being greater than zero. Here we define different types of stagnation - commonly referred to as swamping or absorption, where one operand in an addition is nearly or completely rounded off—in floating-point summation, and propose algorithms for detecting it in numerical code that uses floating-point arithmetic. Whilst cancellation in floating-point arithmetic has been studied, for example by Lam et al. in `Dynamic floating point cancellation detection', stagnation has not been exploited as a property for detecting and reporting accuracy loss in floating-point operations. We have built prototype dynamic stagnation detection tools in two languages, MATLAB and Julia, and applied them to applications ranging from basic summation of a vector, to matrix multiplication, to a fluid flow simulation model. With this tool, users are able to identify areas of their floating-point code where stagnation occurs - in those areas of the code one may need to switch to a higher precision number format, apply stochastic rounding, or use different summation algorithms such as compensated summation. To the best of our knowledge we provide a first rigorous definition of stagnation in floating-point summation.

We study strictly abnormal sub-Riemannian extremals satisfying the Goh condition and a strong (i.e., coercive) generalized Legendre condition, imposed only at the Lebesgue points of the reference control. We prove that such a control is smooth, that the projected extended Hessian of the end-point map is uniformly coercive on the admissible set of variations for short times, and that the abnormal covector gives a quantitative separation of the end-point of the reference arc from the image of the admissible set under the nonlinear end-point map. As a consequence the reference arc is rigid and, for short times, it is a length minimizer: every admissible curve with the same end-points and no greater length is a reparametrization of the reference arc. In particular, among controls of constant speed the reference control is the unique length minimizer. All the estimates are uniform on the admissible set, and no assumption is made on the dimension of the manifold, on the growth vector of the distribution, or on the corank of the differential of the end-point map.

We study stochastic Hamilton–Jacobi–Bellman equations arising from stochastic optimal control problems with random coefficients and possible degenerateness. The viscosity solution is reformulated by using adapted smooth random test fields that touch on stopped space–time neighborhoods almost surely. The state coefficients are predictable, with no continuity assumption on their dependence on the underlying Brownian path. Under linear growth of locally Lipschitz drift and diffusion coefficients, polynomial growth of the running and terminal cost coefficients, and a nonempty separable metric space-valued control set, we show that the value function is the unique viscosity solution in this formulation among adapted continuous fields with square-integrable random polynomial growth bounds. The comparison proof constructs adapted fields from controlled trajectories and spatially shaken conditional values, using a weak semimartingale decomposition and regularization of its positive finite-variation part. In particular, the uniqueness allows for diffusion coefficients being random, degenerate, and depending on time, state, and control, whereas earlier uniqueness results of Qiu [SIAM J. Control Optim. 56 (2018), pp. 3708–3730] and Qiu and Zhang [Ann. Appl. Probab. 33 (2023), pp. 889–930] were obtained under additional structural restrictions on the diffusion coefficient, such as determinism combined with either superparabolicity or independence of the state and controls.

We introduce, for an embedded Legendrian link~$L$ in a contact 3-manifold~$(M,\xi)$, the group of its Legendrian motions. Analogously with the smooth case, we prove that this Legendrian motion group is isomorphic to the fundamental group of the space of unparametrised Legendrian embeddings. For all Legendrian knots in the standard contact 3-sphere, we characterise Legendrian motions in terms of contact mapping classes of the knot exterior. In an appendix, we give a short exposition of our techniques applied to the smooth case, comparing to the classical Dahm homomorphism.

The Weisfeiler-Leman (WL) algorithm tests graph isomorphism by assigning colours to $d$-tuples of vertices and iteratively refining the colouring according to neighbourhood configurations until it stabilizes. Increasing $d$ allows the test to detect finer structural differences between graphs, but the computational cost grows exponentially with $d$. The central question is which dimension allows us to distinguish nonisomorphic graphs. We relate a sufficient such dimension to the structure of a graph $G$ through a rank decomposition over $\mathbb F_2$. The two parameters governing the bound are the maximum cut rank $w$ and the fork load $\ell$, which is the largest sum of the parent and two child cut ranks at a fork in the decomposition tree. We prove that WL in dimension $\max\{\ell+1,2w+2\}$ distinguishes every finite nonempty vertex-coloured graph $G$ with such a decomposition from every graph not isomorphic to $G$. Consequently, for $k\geq1$, graphs of rank width at most $k$ can be distinguished from every nonisomorphic graph in dimension $3k+1$, graphs of linear rank width at most $k$ in dimension $2k+2$, and edgeless graphs in dimension one. Uncoloured Cai-Fürer-Immerman (CFI) constructions give linear lower bounds for both width parameters, so the upper bounds are tight up to constant factors.

Motivated by applications in Diophantine approximation, we develop a new fibering mechanism for non-degenerate manifolds in $\mathbb{R}^n$, showing that they admit local decompositions into families of non-degenerate curves with uniform quantitative non-degeneracy properties. The manifolds are required to be $C^N$ with the essentially optimal bound $N\geq \max\lbrace n,l+1\rbrace$, where the manifold is $l$ non-degenerate. Furthermore, we show that this uniform quantitative local control can be globalised into a qualitative statement, so that almost every point of a non-degenerate manifold lies on a non-degenerate curve contained in the manifold. Our approach is perturbative and shows that the fibering structure arising in the analytic setting is stable under sufficiently small $C^N$ perturbations. The method provides a framework for extending fibering based results in Diophantine approximation from curves to manifolds. Such applications are considered in the paper.

Safety filters that rely on control barrier function (CBF) quadratic programs (QPs) are typically analyzed under the assumption that the QP is solved instantaneously, although nonzero computation time can render a computed input unsafe by the time it is applied. This paper develops a dual leaky integrate-and-fire (LIF) event-triggered safety filter for linear systems that accounts for this delay. Two LIF states monitor a shifted CBF residual and the deviation of the held input from the nominal feedback law. A computation is initiated when either LIF state reaches its threshold; the previous input remains applied until the prescribed application time, and any solution returned earlier is stored until then. A closed-form charging profile relates the safety-LIF threshold to residual-growth bounds, ensuring sufficient residual margin over the application delay. Under the stated assumptions, the resulting hybrid system guarantees forward invariance, completeness, and non-Zeno execution, with positive lower bounds on computation-initiation and input-application times. A spacecraft terminal-approach simulation demonstrates safety with fewer optimizer calls than a delay-tightened periodic filter.

For an oriented regular plane curve $\gamma$, define ${\cal T}\gamma=\gamma+\tau$, where $\tau$ is its unit tangent. We construct a noncircular curve $\Gamma_0$ such that every iterate ${\cal T}^n\Gamma_0$, $n\geq0$, is a smooth embedded closed curve with everywhere positive curvature. This answers a question of Tabachnikov. The construction starts with a noncompact convex curve $C$, asymptotic at its two ends to parallel lines, satisfying ${\cal T} C=C+(V,0)$ for some $V>0$. From $C$ we construct long closed convex curves. After matching perimeters, we compare each curve with a convex curve whose unit-tangent image is the next curve in the sequence. In suitable arclength coordinates, their curvature functions differ by an exponentially small amount in $L^1$. Uniform inverse estimates turn these approximate relations into an exact sequence $\Gamma_{n+1}={\cal T}\Gamma_n$. Each $\Gamma_n$ lies in a strip of width bounded independently of $n$, whereas the radii of iterated circles tend to infinity.

We study ranking models by population-average utility from pairwise comparisons when preferences vary across users and tasks. Prior work shows that a single comparison per user can be insufficient to identify the alternative with the highest average utility, even with arbitrarily many users (Golz et al., 2025). We investigate how many repeated comparisons within each user-task context are necessary and sufficient for ranking recovery. Under a heterogeneous Bradley-Terry model with fixed inverse temperature, we start with a naive MLE-based algorithm that requires $\Omega(1/\Delta^2)$ repeated comparisons per context to ensure ranking recovery. We then present two MLE-based variants and a randomized Russian Roulette-style algorithm that recover the ranking using $O(\log(1/\Delta))$ repeated comparisons per context, and we prove that this logarithmic dependence is optimal. Despite this worst-case requirement, our Russian Roulette algorithm uses only $O(1)$ comparisons per context in expectation. Synthetic experiments and semi-synthetic experiments based on Arena data compare the four algorithms in settings with varying levels of preference heterogeneity and under varying context distributions.

Distributionally robust optimization (DRO) protects decisions against distributional uncertainty by optimizing over an ambiguity set, but poorly aligned set geometry can require large radii and yield overly conservative decisions. We introduce diagnostic-transport DRO (DT-DRO), which uses held-out calibration data to adapt the ambiguity-set geometry to observed predictive errors. DT-DRO uses the conditional probability integral transform cumulative distribution function to diagnose systematic probability misallocation and translates this information into an outcome-level transport that jointly adjusts the ambiguity-set center and ground cost. The resulting formulation admits a computationally tractable dual reformulation. Theoretically, we derive valid ambiguity radii and decision-risk guarantees that tighten as estimation and approximation errors vanish, and show that DT-DRO can eliminate the nonvanishing robustness floor caused by model misspecification. Synthetic experiments and a power-outage application demonstrate improved decision quality, particularly under structural and tail misspecification.

Under the assumption of integrability of the smooth Jacobi fields and a condition on the intersection pattern of the link, we prove uniqueness of special Lagrangian tangent cones in $\mathbb{C}^3$ whose links are compact immersed special Legendrian surfaces with transverse double points. The proof is based on a discrete Lojasiewicz type inequality, which comes from a gluing obstruction mechanism.

We develop a modular wall crossing theory for quasimaps to a projective variety, allowing independent variation of the boundary coefficients and the quasimap weight. Building on the K-stability of quasimaps introduced by Hashizume and the first author, we construct projective moduli spaces in the stable, Calabi–Yau, and log Fano regimes, together with wall crossing morphisms. A central construction is the moduli theory of boundary polarized Calabi–Yau quasimaps, which retains an ample polarization at the numerically trivial locus and allows comparison with suitable perturbations toward the stable and log Fano regions. The stable theory applies in arbitrary genus, while the comparisons through the Calabi–Yau locus concern genus zero. For degree-one boundary divisors, the resulting framework relates weighted stable maps and quasimaps to Hassett spaces and GIT quotients of weighted points on $\mathbb P^1$. In a companion paper, we apply this framework to give a modular interpolation between Miranda's GIT compactification of rational elliptic surfaces and the Baily–Borel compactification of an eight-dimensional ball quotient.

Using K-moduli spaces for log quasimaps $q_t\colon\left(\mathbb P^1,\frac{1-t}{12}D\right)\to[\mathbb A^2/\mathbb G_m]$ of degree twelve with twelve points and weight $t/12$, we construct a modular interpolation $\{\mathcal M_t\}_{0\le t\le1}$ between the Baily–Borel compactification of the Heckman–Looijenga ball quotient $X_o$ and Miranda's GIT compactification of the moduli space of rational elliptic surfaces. We completely determine the wall-crossing and, for every rational $t\in[0,1]$, identify \[ \mathcal M_t\cong\operatorname{Proj}R\!\left(X_o,\mathcal L+\frac t2\Delta(6)+\frac t3\Delta(9)\right), \] where $\mathcal L$ is the automorphic $\mathbb Q$-line bundle and $\Delta(6),\Delta(9)$ are distinguished Heegner divisors. On the automorphic side, we construct a new automorphic form on $X_o$ via a Borcherds product, whose divisor gives an independent relation among the Heegner divisors. This relation provides a key input for determining the birational transformations in the K-moduli wall-crossing. As part of this analysis, we show that the first positive chamber $\mathcal M_t$ for $t\in (0,1/7)$ is Looijenga's semi-toroidal compactification.

Let $\mathop{Mod}_{g,n}$ be the mapping class group of a genus-$g$ surface with $n$ punctures and let $\mathcal{C}_{g,n}$ be its curve complex. For a finite-index subgroup $G < \mathop{Mod}_{g,n}$, Boggi proved that $\widetilde{H}_k(\mathcal{C}_{g,n}/G;\mathbb{Q}) = 0$ for $g+n \gg k$. This plays an important role in the work of Putman-Wieland on the virtual first Betti number of $\mathop{Mod}_{g,n}$. The proof of Boggi's theorem uses mixed Hodge theory and is embedded in his flawed paper purporting to show that the mapping class group has the congruence subgroup property. We give a detailed exposition of Boggi's proof aimed at geometric topologists.

Let $U$ be the ring of upper triangular $2\times2$ integer matrices. For $N\in U$, a Jordan $D(N)$-set is a set of distinct nonzero matrices in $U$ such that $(AB+BA)/2+N$ is a square in $U$ for any two distinct elements $A$ and $B$. We determine all $N$ for which an infinite Jordan $D(N)$-set exists. If no infinite set exists, every such set has at most six elements. If $N$ is not a difference of two squares in $U$, the bound is five. Both bounds are best possible. We also give necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of infinite sets with nonzero pairwise Jordan products and of infinite sets consisting of nonsingular matrices.

The Minimum Birkhoff Decomposition (MBD) seeks a sparse weighted sum of matchings and is a challenging optimization problem with applications in network scheduling and energy trading. We scale a quantum-assisted decomposition method by combining single-layer QAOA sampling with Extended Fully-Corrective Frank-Wolfe (E-FCFW) optimization, spectral graph partitioning, and greedy feasibility repair. We demonstrate the pipeline on the 1,354-node PEGASE bus test case (representing a 1,354-bus transmission grid with 1,710 transmission lines), whose 1,710 edges define a native 1,710-variable matching optimization problem requiring 1,710 qubits in the unpartitioned encoding. Partitioning enables distributed execution on IBM superconducting quantum processors. The best reported hardware result uses a 50-qubit partition bound, while reducing partitions to 20 qubits degrades convergence in the partition-size comparison. Larger partitions are more demanding for matrix product state (MPS) simulation, and bond-dimension tests show that truncating quantum correlations reduces candidate quality. The results therefore motivate retaining a substantive quantum sampling task within each partition as the overall problem scales. On the PEGASE-1354 benchmark, repaired QAOA samples achieve lower residual decomposition error than both simulated annealing and uniform random sampling baselines, while spatial circuit packing reduces hardware execution time by approximately a factor of three. These results demonstrate that combining spectral partitioning, spatial circuit packing, and classical feasibility repair provides an executable path for deploying gate-based quantum sampling on thousand-variable constrained optimization problems on current hardware.

We establish a geometric rigidity theorem for a class of monomial varieties in finite-dimensional unit balls. Every ball automorphism mapping one such variety onto another is unitary, and whenever such an equivalence exists, it can also be realized by a permutation of the ambient coordinates. As a consequence, we obtain a complete isometric classification of the multiplier algebras of integrally generated complete Nevanlinna–Pick Dirichlet series kernels in terms of their defining weight and frequency data. We also obtain an explicit isometric classification for a class of complete Nevanlinna–Pick kernels on bounded Reinhardt domains.

Let $f\in\mathbb Q[t]$ be an irreducible polynomial of positive degree with positive leading coefficient, taking integer values at every integer. We prove that there is a constant $c_f>0$ such that, for every sufficiently large real $X$, the interval $(X/2,X]$ contains at least $c_f\log X\log\log X$ consecutive integers $n$ for which all values $f(n)$ are composite. The exponent of $\log\log X$ is independent of the degree of $f$. This improves the previous result of Ford and Gabdullin by replacing their small fixed power of $\log\log X$ with the full factor $\log\log X$. In particular, the result applies to $f(t)=t^2+1$.

We show that, given a closed connected non-orientable surface $F$ and a simple branched cover $p \colon F \rightarrow \mathbb{RP}^2$ of degree $d \geq 5$, every self-diffeomorphism of $F$ is isotopic to the lift of a self-diffeomorphism of $\mathbb{RP}^2$ with respect to $p$. As an application, we show that every Lefschetz fibration over a connected surface $B$ with $\partial B\neq \emptyset$ and closed non-orientable regular fiber can be expressed as the composition of a simple cover of $B\times \mathbb{RP}^2$ branched over a surface braided over $B$ and projection onto the $B$-factor.

In a neighborhood of the origin in $\mathbb{R}^9$, we construct a minimal hypersurface with respect to a smooth conformally Euclidean metric, whose singular set consists of the origin and a sequence of isolated singular points converging to it. At each of the isolated singular points the hypersurface has the unique tangent cone $C_{4,3}$, the cone over $S^4(\sqrt{4/7})\times S^3(\sqrt{3/7})$, whereas at the origin its unique tangent cone is the cone $C_{3,3}\times\mathbb{R}$. The metric is Euclidean near each isolated singular point and agrees with the Euclidean metric to infinite order at the origin. A key step, of independent interest, is the construction of an entire stationary hypersurface in Euclidean $\mathbb{R}^9$ with exactly one singular point at the origin, at which its unique tangent cone is $C_{4,3}$, and whose unique tangent cone at infinity is $C_{3,3}\times\mathbb{R}$.

We study the singular set of the free boundary for solutions of the thin Stefan problem in $\mathbb{R}^{n+1}\times \mathbb{R}$, which models the melting of a thin sheet of ice over water. After a suitable transformation, we reduce to studying the parabolic Signorini (thin obstacle) problem with a time-monotonicity condition. First, we prove that the free boundary is locally the graph of a differentiable melting function $t=\tau(x)$ defined on the $n$-dimensional thin space, and that the singular set coincides with the critical set of $\tau$. Next, we show that the singular set has parabolic Hausdorff dimension at most $n$. We then establish generic regularity up to dimension $n+1=4$, proving that the free boundary is regular for almost every time. Finally, under smoothness assumptions on the obstacle, we show that the singular set is contained in a $C^\infty$-hypersurface outside a set of parabolic dimension at most $n-1$. Our analysis combines ideas developed for the classical Stefan problem with several new ingredients specific to the thin setting, including frequency formulas for second blow-ups, epiperimetric inequalities, higher order expansions, and a fine stratification of the singular set.

We study Legendrian realizations of double twist knots in the standard tight contact 3-sphere. For the family K(4,m), we give upper bounds on the number of oriented and unoriented Legendrian isotopy classes of maximal Thurston–Bennequin representatives. The proof uses bypass techniques in convex surface theory and the classification of tight contact structures.

We study gauge-invariant two-matrix polynomials of degree $L$, corresponding to the states in the $su(2)$ sector of $\mathcal{N}=4$ super Yang-Mills theory with gauge group $U(N)$ or $SU(N)$ at finite $N$. For the $U(N)$ theory, the state space has the structure of an algebra $\mathcal{A}_N(L)$, which is a direct sum of permutation centraliser algebras, i.e. sub-algebras of the group algebra $\mathbb{C}[S_L]$ of $S_L$. For $N \ge L$, $\mathcal{A}_N (L) = \mathcal{A} (L)$ is independent of $N$, and the one-loop dilatation operator acts on $\mathcal{A}(L)$ with $N$ as a parameter. For $N < L$, $\mathcal{A}_N (L)$ is a subspace of $\mathcal{A}(L)$ defined using a finite-$N$ cutoff on Young diagrams with $L$ boxes. We establish two results on the eigenspaces of the one-loop dilatation operator. Our first main result is that the characteristic polynomial of the one-loop dilatation operator on $\mathcal{A}_N(L)$ divides the characteristic polynomial from $\mathcal{A}(L)$, continued to $N < L$. Our second result is that each eigenstate of the one-loop dilatation operator in the $SU(N)$ theory generates an infinite tower of eigenstates in the $U(N)$ theory, through the multiplication of single-letter traces. These towers define an eigenspace factorisation of the $U(N)$ theory labelled by the number of such traces. Further, we conjecture that the space of $SU(N)$-invariant polynomials in two traceless matrices at finite $N$ is isomorphic to the intersection of $\mathcal{A}_N(L)$ with the subspace of $\mathbb{C}[S_L]$ spanned by derangements. This intersection conjecture is supported by dimension counting. Finally, we propose a one-loop dilatation operator on the intersection, thus providing a direct permutation framework for the $SU(N)$ spectral problem at finite $N$. The computed spectra based on the proposal agree with the prediction from the eigenspace factorisation in the $U(N)$ theory.

We propose a continuous policy-value iteration framework for infinite horizon stochastic control problems, in which the policy evolves through Langevin type dynamics driven by the gradient of the inhomogeneous Hamiltonian, while the value function is updated simultaneously with optimal policy iterations, avoiding directly solving its corresponding PDE at each iteration. The iteration scheme enjoys policy improvement under suitable regularity and admissibility assumptions. We show the exponential contraction of the joint policy value dynamics in Wasserstein-2 distance under the Lipschitz condition in expectation via the inhomogeneous synchronous coupling and verify these conditions for linear quadratic problems. Numerical experiments on linear quadratic models and the optimal consumption-investment problems in an incomplete market factor model illustrate policy improvement, convergence toward optimal policies, and the effect of decaying exploration noise.