On right conjugacy closed loops of twice prime order

The right conjugacy closed loops of order 2p, where p is an odd prime, are classified up to isomorphism.Comment: Clarified definitions, added some remarks and a tabl

Infinite Simple Bol Loops

If the left multiplication group of a loop is simple, then the loop is simple. We use this observation to give examples of infinite simple Bol loops.Comment: 4 pages, AMS-LaTeX, to appear in Comment. Math. Univ. Carolinae for a special issue: the Proceedings of Loops03. Version 3: more minor changes suggested by the refere

PSL(n∣n)PSL(n|n) Sigma Model as a Conformal Field Theory

We discuss the sigma model on the $PSL(n|n)$ supergroup manifold. We demonstrate that this theory is exactly conformal. The chiral algebra of this model is given by some extension of the Virasoro algebra, similar to the $W$ algebra of Zamolodchikov. We also show that all group invariant correlation functions are coupling constant independent and can be computed in the free theory. The non invariant correlation functions are highly nontrivial and coupling dependent. At the end we compare two and three-point correlation functions of the $PSL(1,1|2)$ sigma model with the correlation functions in the boundary theory of $AdS_3 \times S^3$ and find a qualitative agreement.Comment: 34 pages, 5 figure

Zero Lyapunov exponents of the Hodge bundle

By the results of G. Forni and of R. Trevi\~no, the Lyapunov spectrum of the Hodge bundle over the Teichm\"uller geodesic flow on the strata of Abelian and of quadratic differentials does not contain zeroes even though for certain invariant submanifolds zero exponents are present in the Lyapunov spectrum. In all previously known examples, the zero exponents correspond to those PSL(2,R)-invariant subbundles of the real Hodge bundle for which the monodromy of the Gauss-Manin connection acts by isometries of the Hodge metric. We present an example of an arithmetic Teichm\"uller curve, for which the real Hodge bundle does not contain any PSL(2,R)-invariant, continuous subbundles, and nevertheless its spectrum of Lyapunov exponents contains zeroes. We describe the mechanism of this phenomenon; it covers the previously known situation as a particular case. Conjecturally, this is the only way zero exponents can appear in the Lyapunov spectrum of the Hodge bundle for any PSL(2,R)-invariant probability measure.Comment: 47 pages, 10 figures. Final version (based on the referee's report). A slightly shorter version of this article will appear in Commentarii Mathematici Helvetici. A pdf file containing a copy of the Mathematica routine "FMZ3-Zariski-numerics_det1.nb" is available at this link here: http://w3.impa.br/~cmateus/files/FMZ3-Zariski-numerics_det1.pd

Square-tiled cyclic covers

A cyclic cover of the complex projective line branched at four appropriate points has a natural structure of a square-tiled surface. We describe the combinatorics of such a square-tiled surface, the geometry of the corresponding Teichm\"uller curve, and compute the Lyapunov exponents of the determinant bundle over the Teichm\"uller curve with respect to the geodesic flow. This paper includes a new example (announced by G. Forni and C. Matheus in \cite{Forni:Matheus}) of a Teichm\"uller curve of a square-tiled cyclic cover in a stratum of Abelian differentials in genus four with a maximally degenerate Kontsevich--Zorich spectrum (the only known example found previously by Forni in genus three also corresponds to a square-tiled cyclic cover \cite{ForniSurvey}). We present several new examples of Teichm\"uller curves in strata of holomorphic and meromorphic quadratic differentials with maximally degenerate Kontsevich--Zorich spectrum. Presumably, these examples cover all possible Teichm\"uller curves with maximally degenerate spectrum. We prove that this is indeed the case within the class of square-tiled cyclic covers.Comment: 34 pages, 6 figures. Final version incorporating referees comments. In particular, a gap in the previous version was corrected. This file uses the journal's class file (jmd.cls), so that it is very similar to published versio