Hopf Algebras in General and in Combinatorial Physics: a practical introduction

This tutorial is intended to give an accessible introduction to Hopf algebras. The mathematical context is that of representation theory, and we also illustrate the structures with examples taken from combinatorics and quantum physics, showing that in this latter case the axioms of Hopf algebra arise naturally. The text contains many exercises, some taken from physics, aimed at expanding and exemplifying the concepts introduced

Moduli of abelian surfaces, symmetric theta structures and theta characteristics

We study the birational geometry of some moduli spaces of abelian varieties with extra structure: in particular, with a symmetric theta structure and an odd theta characteristic. For a $(d_1,d_2)$-polarized abelian surface, we show how the parities of the $d_i$ influence the relation between canonical level structures and symmetric theta structures. For certain values of $d_1$ and $d_2$, a theta characteristic is needed in order to define Theta-null maps. We use these Theta-null maps and preceding work of other authors on the representations of the Heisenberg group to study the birational geometry and the Kodaira dimension of these moduli spaces.Comment: Final version. To appear in Commentarii Mathematici Helvetici (CMH

Solitons and admissible families of rational curves in twistor spaces

It is well known that twistor constructions can be used to analyse and to obtain solutions to a wide class of integrable systems. In this article we express the standard twistor constructions in terms of the concept of an admissible family of rational curves in certain twistor spaces. Examples of of such families can be obtained as subfamilies of a simple family of rational curves using standard operations of algebraic geometry. By examination of several examples, we give evidence that this construction is the basis of the construction of many of the most important solitonic and algebraic solutions to various integrable differential equations of mathematical physics. This is presented as evidence for a principal that, in some sense, all soliton-like solutions should be constructable in this way.Comment: 15 pages, Abstract and introduction rewritten to clarify the objectives of the paper. This is the final version which will appear in Nonlinearit

Questions about linear spaces

AbstractWe present three themes of interest for future research that require the cooperation of fairly large teams: 1.linear spaces as building blocks;2.data for an Atlas of linear spaces;3.morphisms of linear spaces