Assouad-Nagata dimension and gap for ordered metric spaces

We prove that all spaces of finite Assouad-Nagata dimension admit a good order for Travelling Salesman Problem, and provide sufficient conditions under which the converse is true. We formulate a conjectural characterisation of spaces of finite $AN$-dimension, which would yield a gap statement for the efficiency of orders on metric spaces. Under assumption of doubling, we prove a stronger gap phenomenon about all orders on a given metric space.Comment: 27 pages. This paper appeared originally as the second part of first versions of arXiv:2011.01732. Now the paper is split it two parts, the first one "Spaces that can be ordered effectively: virtually free groups and hyperbolicity" arXiv:2011.01732, and the second part her

Detection of an anomalous cluster in a network

We consider the problem of detecting whether or not, in a given sensor network, there is a cluster of sensors which exhibit an "unusual behavior." Formally, suppose we are given a set of nodes and attach a random variable to each node. We observe a realization of this process and want to decide between the following two hypotheses: under the null, the variables are i.i.d. standard normal; under the alternative, there is a cluster of variables that are i.i.d. normal with positive mean and unit variance, while the rest are i.i.d. standard normal. We also address surveillance settings where each sensor in the network collects information over time. The resulting model is similar, now with a time series attached to each node. We again observe the process over time and want to decide between the null, where all the variables are i.i.d. standard normal, and the alternative, where there is an emerging cluster of i.i.d. normal variables with positive mean and unit variance. The growth models used to represent the emerging cluster are quite general and, in particular, include cellular automata used in modeling epidemics. In both settings, we consider classes of clusters that are quite general, for which we obtain a lower bound on their respective minimax detection rate and show that some form of scan statistic, by far the most popular method in practice, achieves that same rate to within a logarithmic factor. Our results are not limited to the normal location model, but generalize to any one-parameter exponential family when the anomalous clusters are large enough.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/10-AOS839 the Annals of Statistics (http://www.imstat.org/aos/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

The Brownian map is the scaling limit of uniform random plane quadrangulations

76 pages, 7 figures, improved versionWe prove that uniform random quadrangulations of the sphere with n faces, endowed with the usual graph distance and renormalized by n −1/4 , converge as n → ∞ in distribution for the Gromov-Hausdorff topology to a limiting metric space. We validate a conjecture by Le Gall, by showing that the limit is (up to a scale constant) the so-called Brownian map, which was introduced by Marckert & Mokkadem and Le Gall as the most natural candidate for the scaling limit of many models of random plane maps. The proof relies strongly on the concept of geodesic stars in the map, which are configurations made of several geodesics that only share a common endpoint and do not meet elsewhere

Hyperbolicity, Assouad-Nagata dimension and orders on metric spaces

We study asymptotic invariants of metric spaces, defined in terms of the travelling salesman problem, and our goal is to classify groups and spaces depending on how well they can be ordered in this context. We characterize virtually free groups as those admitting an order which has some efficiency on $4$-point subsets. We show that all $\delta$-hyperbolic spaces can be ordered extremely efficiently, for the question when the number of points of a subset tends to $\infty$. We prove that all spaces of finite Assouad-Nagata dimension admit a good order for the above mentioned problem, and under an additional hypothesis we prove the converse. Despite travelling salesman terminology, our paper does not aim at applications in computer science. Our goal is to study new properties of groups and metric spaces, and describe their connection with more traditional invariants, such as hyperbolicity, dimension, number of ends and doubling.Comment: title and abstract revised. minor correction

Extended affine Weyl groups and Frobenius manifolds

We define certain extensions of affine Weyl groups (distinct from these considered by K. Saito [S1] in the theory of extended affine root systems), prove an analogue of Chevalley theorem for their invariants, and construct a Frobenius structure on their orbit spaces. This produces solutions $F(t_1, ..., t_n)$ of WDVV equations of associativity polynomial in $t_1, ..., t_{n-1}, \exp t_n$.Comment: 69 pages, amslatex, some references added, position of Table 1 is corrected. Revised version for Compositio Mathematic