Georgia Institute of Technology College of Sciences

An open problem of interest in combinatorial number theory is that of providing a non-ergodic proof to the so called polynomial Szemeredi theorem. So far, the landmark result in this venue is that of Green who considered the emergence of 3-term arithmetic progressions whose gap is a sum of two squares (not both zero) in dense sets of integers. In view of this we consider the following problem. Given two dense subsets A and S of a finite abelian group G, what is the weakest "pseudorandomness assumption" once put on S implies that A contains a 3-term arithmetic progressions whose gap is in S? We answer this question for G=Z_n and G = F_p^n. To quantify pseudorandomness we use Gowers norms.

This talk evolves around Markov functions, i.e., when a function of a Markov chain results in another Markov chain. We focus on two examples where this concept yields new results and insights: (1) the evolution of reflected stochastic processes in the study of stochastic networks, and (2) spectral analysis for a special high-dimensional Markov chain.

(Joint with: M. Benedicks and D. Schnellmann) Many interesting dynamical systems possess a unique SRB ("physical")measure, which behaves well with respect to Lebesgue measure. Given a smooth one-parameter family of dynamical systems f_t, is natural to ask whether the SRB measure depends smoothly on the parameter t. If the f_t are smooth hyperbolic diffeomorphisms (which are structurally stable), the SRB measure depends differentiably on the parameter t, and its derivative is given by a "linear response" formula (Ruelle, 1997). When bifurcations are present and structural stability does not hold, linear response may break down. This was first observed for piecewise expanding interval maps, where linear response holds for tangential families, but where a modulus of continuity t log t may be attained for transversal families (Baladi-Smania, 2008). The case of smooth unimodal maps is much more delicate. Ruelle (Misiurewicz case, 2009) and Baladi-Smania (slow recurrence case, 2012) obtained linear response for fully tangential families (confined within a topological class). The talk will be nontechnical and most of it will be devoted to motivation and history. We also aim to present our new results on the transversal smooth unimodal case (including the quadratic family), where we obtain Holder upper and lower bounds (in the sense of Whitney, along suitable classes of parameters).

Abstract: Four dimensions is unique in many ways. For example, n-dimensional Euclidean space has a unique smooth structure if and only if n is not equal to four. In other words, there is only one way to understand smooth functions on R^n if and only if n is not 4. There are many other ways that smooth structures on 4-dimensional manifolds behave in surprising ways. In this talk I will discuss this and I will sketch the beautiful interplay of ideas (you got algebra, analysis and topology, a little something for everyone!) that go into proving R^4 has more that one smooth structure (actually it has uncountably many different smooth structures but that that would take longer to explain).