Relative cohomology of bi-arrangements

A bi-arrangement of hyperplanes in a complex affine space is the data of two sets of hyperplanes along with a coloring information on the strata. To such a bi-arrangement, one naturally associates a relative cohomology group, that we call its motive. The motivation for studying such relative cohomology groups comes from the notion of motivic period. More generally, we suggest the systematic study of the motive of a bi-arrangement of hypersurfaces in a complex manifold. We provide combinatorial and cohomological tools to compute the structure of these motives. Our main object is the Orlik-Solomon bi-complex of a bi-arrangement, which generalizes the Orlik-Solomon algebra of an arrangement. Loosely speaking, our main result states that "the motive of an exact bi-arrangement is computed by its Orlik-Solomon bi-complex", which generalizes classical facts involving the Orlik-Solomon algebra of an arrangement. We show how this formalism allows us to explicitly compute motives arising from the study of multiple zeta values and sketch a more general application to periods of mixed Tate motives.Comment: 43 pages; minor correction

Gerbes, simplicial forms and invariants for families of foliated bundles

The notion of a gerbe with connection is conveniently reformulated in terms of the simplicial deRham complex. In particular the usual Chern-Weil and Chern-Simons theory is well adapted to this framework and rather easily gives rise to `characteristic gerbes' associated to families of bundles and connections. In turn this gives invariants for families of foliated bundles. A special case is the Quillen line bundle associated to families of flat SU(2)-bundlesComment: 28 page

Large entropy measures for endomorphisms of CP(k)

Let $f$ be an holomorphic endomorphism of $\mathbb{C}\mathbb{P}^k$. We construct by using coding techniques a class of ergodic measures as limits of non-uniform probability measures on preimages of points. We show that they have large metric entropy, close to $\log d^k$. We establish for them strong stochastic properties and prove the positivity of their Lyapunov exponents. Since they have large entropy, those measures are supported in the support of the maximal entropy measure of $f$. They in particular provide lower bounds for the Hausdorff dimension of the Julia set.Comment: 24 page

How accurate is NETTO

The historical origin and general history of vertical current total energy variometer, including its optimum airspeed selector ring are reviewed, and some later developments of it are discussed. Polars of three sailplanes of different spans are charted for straight and circling flight, then plotted to reveal their parabolic anomaly and the effect of circling flight sink rate. These effects are further analyzed for their influence on the transient compensation of NETTO variometers as well as the speed ring. Some other disturbances due to the quality of sailplane preparation and flight dynamics are listed. Conclusions are drawn about the problems to pilots from imperfect NETTO variometer compensation and its effect on the maximization of ground speed from the speed ring. A modification for improvements to the speed ring and computer is suggested