On rational homology disk smoothings of valency 4 surface singularities

Thanks to the recent work of Bhupal, Stipsicz, Szabo, and the author, one has a complete list of resolution graphs of weighted homogeneous complex surface singularities admitting a rational homology disk ("QHD") smoothing, i.e., one with Milnor number 0. They fall into several classes, the most interesting of which are the three classes whose resolution dual graph has central vertex with valency 4. We give a uniform "quotient construction" of the QHD smoothings for these classes; it is an explicit Q-Gorenstein smoothing, yielding a precise description of the Milnor fibre and its non-abelian fundamental group. This had already been done for two of these classes in a previous paper; what is new here is the construction of the third class, which is far more difficult. In addition, we explain the existence of two different QHD smoothings for the first class. We also prove a general formula for the dimension of a QHD smoothing component for a rational surface singularity. A corollary is that for the valency 4 cases, such a component has dimension 1 and is smooth. Another corollary is that "most" H-shaped resolution graphs cannot be the graph of a singularity with a QHD smoothing. This result, plus recent work of Bhupal-Stipsicz, is evidence for a general Conjecture: The only complex surface singularities with a QHD smoothing are the (known) weighted homogeneous examples.Comment: 28 pages: title changed, typos fixed, references and small clarifications adde

Belyi-extending maps and the Galois action on dessins d'enfants

We study the absolute Galois group by looking for invariants and orbits of its faithful action on Grothendieck's dessins d'enfants. We define a class of functions called Belyi-extending maps, which we use to construct new Galois invariants of dessins from previously known invariants. Belyi-extending maps are the source of the ``new-type'' relations on the injection of the absolute Galois group into the Grothendieck-Teichmuller group. We make explicit how to get from a general Belyi-extending map to formula for its associated invariant which can be implemented in a computer algebra package. We give an example of a new invariant differing on two dessins which have the same values for the other readily computable invariants.Comment: 13 pages, 7 figures; submitted for publication; revisions are that the paper now deals only with Galois invariants of dessins, and that material is slightly expande

Gibbs and Quantum Discrete Spaces

Gibbs measure is one of the central objects of the modern probability, mathematical statistical physics and euclidean quantum field theory. Here we define and study its natural generalization for the case when the space, where the random field is defined is itself random. Moreover, this randomness is not given apriori and independently of the configuration, but rather they depend on each other, and both are given by Gibbs procedure; We call the resulting object a Gibbs family because it parametrizes Gibbs fields on different graphs in the support of the distribution. We study also quantum (KMS) analog of Gibbs families. Various applications to discrete quantum gravity are given.Comment: 37 pages, 2 figure

Genus Ranges of 4-Regular Rigid Vertex Graphs

We introduce a notion of genus range as a set of values of genera over all surfaces into which a graph is embedded cellularly, and we study the genus ranges of a special family of four-regular graphs with rigid vertices that has been used in modeling homologous DNA recombination. We show that the genus ranges are sets of consecutive integers. For any positive integer $n$, there are graphs with $2n$ vertices that have genus range ${m,m+1,...,m'}$ for all $0\le m<m'\le n$, and there are graphs with $2n-1$ vertices with genus range ${m,m+1,...,m'}$ for all $0\le m<m' <n$ or $0<m<m'\le n$. Further, we show that for every $n$ there is $k<n$ such that ${h}$ is a genus range for graphs with $2n-1$ and $2n$ vertices for all $h\le k$. It is also shown that for every $n$, there is a graph with $2n$ vertices with genus range ${0,1,...,n}$, but there is no such a graph with $2n-1$ vertices

Ramanujan graphs in cryptography

In this paper we study the security of a proposal for Post-Quantum Cryptography from both a number theoretic and cryptographic perspective. Charles-Goren-Lauter in 2006 [CGL06] proposed two hash functions based on the hardness of finding paths in Ramanujan graphs. One is based on Lubotzky-Phillips-Sarnak (LPS) graphs and the other one is based on Supersingular Isogeny Graphs. A 2008 paper by Petit-Lauter-Quisquater breaks the hash function based on LPS graphs. On the Supersingular Isogeny Graphs proposal, recent work has continued to build cryptographic applications on the hardness of finding isogenies between supersingular elliptic curves. A 2011 paper by De Feo-Jao-Pl\^{u}t proposed a cryptographic system based on Supersingular Isogeny Diffie-Hellman as well as a set of five hard problems. In this paper we show that the security of the SIDH proposal relies on the hardness of the SIG path-finding problem introduced in [CGL06]. In addition, similarities between the number theoretic ingredients in the LPS and Pizer constructions suggest that the hardness of the path-finding problem in the two graphs may be linked. By viewing both graphs from a number theoretic perspective, we identify the similarities and differences between the Pizer and LPS graphs.Comment: 33 page