Around ℓ\ell-independence

In this article we study various forms of $\ell$-independence (including the case $\ell=p$) for the cohomology and fundamental groups of varieties over finite fields and equicharacteristic local fields. Our first result is a strong form of $\ell$-independence for the unipotent fundamental group of smooth and projective varieties over finite fields, by then proving a certain `spreading out' result we are able to deduce a much weaker form of $\ell$-independence for unipotent fundamental groups over equicharacteristic local fields, at least in the semistable case. In a similar vein, we can also use this to deduce $\ell$-independence results for the cohomology of semistable varieties from the well-known results on $\ell$-independence for smooth and proper varieties over finite fields. As another consequence of this `spreading out' result we are able to deduce the existence of a Clemens--Schmid exact sequence for formal semistable families. Finally, by deforming to characteristic $p$ we show a similar weak version of $\ell$-independence for the unipotent fundamental group of a semistable curve in mixed characteristic.Comment: 23 pages, comments welcom

No-gaps delocalization for general random matrices

We prove that with high probability, every eigenvector of a random matrix is delocalized in the sense that any subset of its coordinates carries a non-negligible portion of its $\ell_2$ norm. Our results pertain to a wide class of random matrices, including matrices with independent entries, symmetric and skew-symmetric matrices, as well as some other naturally arising ensembles. The matrices can be real and complex; in the latter case we assume that the real and imaginary parts of the entries are independent.Comment: 45 page

Logical Dreams

We discuss the past and future of set theory, axiom systems and independence results. We deal in particular with cardinal arithmetic

Logical closure properties of propositional proof systems - (Extended abstract)

In this paper we define and investigate basic logical closure properties of propositional proof systems such as closure of arbitrary proof systems under modus ponens or substitutions. As our main result we obtain a purely logical characterization of the degrees of schematic extensions of EF in terms of a simple combination of these properties. This result underlines the empirical evidence that EF and its extensions admit a robust definition which rests on only a few central concepts from propositional logic