Geography and Intra-National Home Bias: U.S. Domestic Trade in 1949 and 2007

This article examines home bias in U.S. domestic trade in 1949 and 2007. We use a unique data set of 1949 carload waybill statistics produced by the Interstate Commerce Commission, and 2007 Commodity Flow Survey data. The results show that home bias was considerably smaller in 1949 than in 2007 and that home bias in 1949 was even negative for several commodities. We argue that the difference between the geographical distribution of the manufacturing activities in 1949 and that of 2007 is an important factor explaining the differences in the magnitudes of home-bias estimates in those years

On identities in the products of group varieties

Let ${\cal B}_n$ be the variety of groups satisfying the law $x^n=1$. It is proved that for every sufficiently large prime $p$, say $p>10^{10}$, the product ${\cal B}_p{\cal B}_p$ cannot be defined by a finite set of identities. This solves the problem formulated by C.K. Gupta and A.N. Krasilnikov in 2003. We also find the axiomatic and the basis ranks of the variety ${\cal B}_p{\cal B}_p$. For this goal, we improve the estimate for the basis rank of the product of group varieties obtained by G. Baumslag, B.H. Neumann, H. Neumann and P.M. Neumann long ago.Comment: 9 page

Edge diffraction of a convergent wave

Closed-form solutions have been derived for the diffraction patterns at the focal plane of (1) a convergent wave of unit amplitude illuminating a segment of a circular aperture and (2) a convergent wave of Gaussian amplitude diffracted by an infinite edge. Photographs showing the main features of these edge transform patterns are presented together with computer-generated graphs

Supersymmetry and Wrapped Branes in Microstate Geometries

We consider the supergravity back-reaction of M2 branes wrapping around the space-time cycles in 1/8-BPS microstate geometries. We show that such brane wrappings will generically break all the supersymmetries. In particular, all the supersymmetries will be broken if there are such wrapped branes but the net charge of the wrapped branes is zero. We show that if M2 branes wrap a single cycle, or if they wrap a several of co-linear cycles with the same orientation, then the solution will be 1/16-BPS, having two supersymmetries. We comment on how these results relate to using W-branes to understand the microstate structure of 1/8-BPS black holes.Comment: 20 page

BPS equations and Non-trivial Compactifications

We consider the problem of finding exact, eleven-dimensional, BPS supergravity solutions in which the compactification involves a non-trivial Calabi-Yau manifold, ${\cal Y}$, as opposed to simply a $T^6$. Since there are no explicitly-known metrics on non-trivial, compact Calabi-Yau manifolds, we use a non-compact "local model" and take the compactification manifold to be ${\cal Y} = {\cal M}_{GH} \times T^2$ where ${\cal M}_{GH}$ is a hyper-K\"ahler, Gibbons-Hawking ALE space. We focus on backgrounds with three electric charges in five dimensions and find exact families of solutions to the BPS equations that have the same four supersymmetries as the three-charge black hole. Our exact solution to the BPS system requires that the Calabi-Yau manifold be fibered over the space-time using compensators on ${\cal Y}$. The role of the compensators is to ensure smoothness of the eleven-dimensional metric when the moduli of ${\cal Y}$ depend on the space-time. The Maxwell field Ansatz also implicitly involves the compensators through the frames of the fibration. We examine the equations of motion and discuss the brane distributions on generic internal manifolds that do not have enough symmetry to allow smearing.Comment: 32 pages, no figure

On the quasi-isometric rigidity of graphs of surface groups

Let $\Gamma$ be a word hyperbolic group with a cyclic JSJ decomposition that has only rigid vertex groups, which are all fundamental groups of closed surface groups. We show that any group $H$ quasi-isometric to $\Gamma$ is abstractly commensurable with $\Gamma$.Comment: 54 pages, 10 figures, comments welcom

Perturbation of Burkholder's martingale transform and Monge--Amp\`ere equation

Let $\{d_k\}_{k \geq 0}$ be a complex martingale difference in $L^p[0,1],$ where $1<p<\infty,$ and \{\e_k\}_{k \geq 0} a sequence in $\{\pm 1\}.$ We obtain the following generalization of Burkholder's famous result. If $\tau \in [-\frac 12, \frac 12]$ and $n \in \Z_+$ then |\sum_{k=0}^n{(\{c} \e_k \tau) d_k}|_{L^p([0,1], \C^2)} \leq ((p^*-1)^2 + \tau^2)^{\frac 12}|\sum_{k=0}^n{d_k}|_{L^p([0,1], \C)}, where $((p^*-1)^2 + \tau^2)^{\frac 12}$ is sharp and $p^*-1 = \max\{p-1, \frac 1{p-1}\}.$ For $2\leq p<\infty$ the result is also true with sharp constant for $\tau \in \R.$Comment: 45 pages, 13 figure