Constructing Involutive Tableaux with Guillemin Normal Form

Involutivity is the algebraic property that guarantees solutions to an analytic and torsion-free exterior differential system or partial differential equation via the Cartan-K\"ahler theorem. Guillemin normal form establishes that the prolonged symbol of an involutive system admits a commutativity property on certain subspaces of the prolonged tableau. This article examines Guillemin normal form in detail, aiming at a more systematic approach to classifying involutive systems. The main result is an explicit quadratic condition for involutivity of the type suggested but not completed in Chapter IV, \S 5 of the book Exterior Differential Systems by Bryant, Chern, Gardner, Goldschmidt, and Griffiths. This condition enhances Guillemin normal form and characterizes involutive tableaux.Comment: This article co-evolved with "Degeneracy of the Characteristic Variety," arXiv:1410.6947 and most notation is shared. However, be aware that the meaning of the indices i,j,k,l and the space Y is not the same between these article

The first supermassive black holes

We briefly review the historical development of the ideas regarding the first supermassive black hole seeds, the physics of their formation and radiative feedback, recent theoretical and observational progress, and our outlook for the future.Comment: Invited review, Astronomy & Geophysics, 6 pages, 6 figures, updated to reflect the printed versio

Extending the Coinvariant Theorems of Chevalley, Shephard--Todd, Mitchell and Springer

We extend in several directions invariant theory results of Chevalley, Shephard and Todd, Mitchell and Springer. Their results compare the group algebra for a finite reflection group with its coinvariant algebra, and compare a group representation with its module of relative coinvariants. Our extensions apply to arbitrary finite groups in any characteristic.Comment: The applications and Examples in section 4 have been extende

Precession and Nutation in the eta Carinae binary system: Evidences from the X-ray light curve

It is believed that eta Carinae is actually a massive binary system, with the wind-wind interaction responsible for the strong X-ray emission. Although the overall shape of the X-ray light curve can be explained by the high eccentricity of the binary orbit, other features like the asymmetry near periastron passage and the short quasi-periodic oscillations seen at those epochs, have not yet been accounted for. In this paper we explain these features assuming that the rotation axis of eta Carinae is not perpendicular to the orbital plane of the binary system. As a consequence, the companion star will face eta Carinae on the orbital plane at different latitudes for different orbital phases and, since both the mass loss rate and the wind velocity are latitude dependent, they would produce the observed asymmetries in the X-ray flux. We were able to reproduce the main features of the X-ray light curve assuming that the rotation axis of eta Carinae forms an angle of 29 degrees with the axis of the binary orbit. We also explained the short quasi-periodic oscillations by assuming nutation of the rotation axis, with amplitude of about 5 degrees and period of about 22 days. The nutation parameters, as well as the precession of the apsis, with a period of about 274 years, are consistent with what is expected from the torques induced by the companion star.Comment: 9 pages, 8 figures, MNRAS accepte

Geometric Cross-Modal Comparison of Heterogeneous Sensor Data

In this work, we address the problem of cross-modal comparison of aerial data streams. A variety of simulated automobile trajectories are sensed using two different modalities: full-motion video, and radio-frequency (RF) signals received by detectors at various locations. The information represented by the two modalities is compared using self-similarity matrices (SSMs) corresponding to time-ordered point clouds in feature spaces of each of these data sources; we note that these feature spaces can be of entirely different scale and dimensionality. Several metrics for comparing SSMs are explored, including a cutting-edge time-warping technique that can simultaneously handle local time warping and partial matches, while also controlling for the change in geometry between feature spaces of the two modalities. We note that this technique is quite general, and does not depend on the choice of modalities. In this particular setting, we demonstrate that the cross-modal distance between SSMs corresponding to the same trajectory type is smaller than the cross-modal distance between SSMs corresponding to distinct trajectory types, and we formalize this observation via precision-recall metrics in experiments. Finally, we comment on promising implications of these ideas for future integration into multiple-hypothesis tracking systems.Comment: 10 pages, 13 figures, Proceedings of IEEE Aeroconf 201