Effective action in spherical domains

The effective action on an orbifolded sphere is computed for minimally coupled scalar fields. The results are presented in terms of derivatives of Barnes zeta-functions and it is shown how these may be evaluated. Numerical values are shown. An analytical, heat-kernel derivation of the Ces\`aro-Fedorov formula for the number of symmetry planes of a regular solid is also presented.Comment: 18 pages, Plain TeX (Mailer oddities possibly corrected.

Geometrical Frustration and Static Correlations in Hard-Sphere Glass Formers

We analytically and numerically characterize the structure of hard-sphere fluids in order to review various geometrical frustration scenarios of the glass transition. We find generalized polytetrahedral order to be correlated with increasing fluid packing fraction, but to become increasingly irrelevant with increasing dimension. We also find the growth in structural correlations to be modest in the dynamical regime accessible to computer simulations.Comment: 21 pages; part of the "Special Topic Issue on the Glass Transition

Some integrals ocurring in a topology change problem

In a paper presented a few years ago, De Lorenci et al. showed, in the context of canonical quantum cosmology, a model which allowed space topology changes (Phys. Rev. D 56, 3329 (1997)). The purpose of this present work is to go a step further in that model, by performing some calculations only estimated there for several compact manifolds of constant negative curvature, such as the Weeks and Thurston spaces and the icosahedral hyperbolic space (Best space).Comment: RevTeX article, 4 pages, 1 figur

Functional Maps Representation on Product Manifolds

We consider the tasks of representing, analyzing and manipulating maps between shapes. We model maps as densities over the product manifold of the input shapes; these densities can be treated as scalar functions and therefore are manipulable using the language of signal processing on manifolds. Being a manifold itself, the product space endows the set of maps with a geometry of its own, which we exploit to define map operations in the spectral domain; we also derive relationships with other existing representations (soft maps and functional maps). To apply these ideas in practice, we discretize product manifolds and their Laplace--Beltrami operators, and we introduce localized spectral analysis of the product manifold as a novel tool for map processing. Our framework applies to maps defined between and across 2D and 3D shapes without requiring special adjustment, and it can be implemented efficiently with simple operations on sparse matrices.Comment: Accepted to Computer Graphics Foru

Regular Incidence Complexes, Polytopes, and C-Groups

Regular incidence complexes are combinatorial incidence structures generalizing regular convex polytopes, regular complex polytopes, various types of incidence geometries, and many other highly symmetric objects. The special case of abstract regular polytopes has been well-studied. The paper describes the combinatorial structure of a regular incidence complex in terms of a system of distinguished generating subgroups of its automorphism group or a flag-transitive subgroup. Then the groups admitting a flag-transitive action on an incidence complex are characterized as generalized string C-groups. Further, extensions of regular incidence complexes are studied, and certain incidence complexes particularly close to abstract polytopes, called abstract polytope complexes, are investigated.Comment: 24 pages; to appear in "Discrete Geometry and Symmetry", M. Conder, A. Deza, and A. Ivic Weiss (eds), Springe

Hard Discs on the Hyperbolic Plane

We examine a simple hard disc fluid with no long range interactions on the two dimensional space of constant negative Gaussian curvature, the hyperbolic plane. This geometry provides a natural mechanism by which global crystalline order is frustrated, allowing us to construct a tractable model of disordered monodisperse hard discs. We extend free area theory and the virial expansion to this regime, deriving the equation of state for the system, and compare its predictions with simulation near an isostatic packing in the curved space.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, included, final versio

Graphs and Reflection Groups

It is shown that graphs that generalize the ADE Dynkin diagrams and have appeared in various contexts of two-dimensional field theory may be regarded in a natural way as encoding the geometry of a root system. After recalling what are the conditions satisfied by these graphs, we define a bilinear form on a root system in terms of the adjacency matrices of these graphs and undertake the study of the group generated by the reflections in the hyperplanes orthogonal to these roots. Some ``non integrally laced " graphs are shown to be associated with subgroups of these reflection groups. The empirical relevance of these graphs in the classification of conformal field theories or in the construction of integrable lattice models is recalled, and the connections with recent developments in the context of ${\cal N}=2$ supersymmetric theories and topological field theories are discussed.Comment: 42 pages TEX file, harvmac and epsf macros, AMS fonts optional, uuencoded, 8 figures include

Gauge Theoretic Invariants of, Dehn Surgeries on Knots

New methods for computing a variety of gauge theoretic invariants for homology 3-spheres are developed. These invariants include the Chern-Simons invariants, the spectral flow of the odd signature operator, and the rho invariants of irreducible SU(2) representations. These quantities are calculated for flat SU(2) connections on homology 3-spheres obtained by 1/k Dehn surgery on (2,q) torus knots. The methods are then applied to compute the SU(3) gauge theoretic Casson invariant (introduced in [H U Boden and C M Herald, The SU(3) Casson invariant for integral homology 3--spheres, J. Diff. Geom. 50 (1998) 147-206]) for Dehn surgeries on (2,q) torus knots for q=3,5,7 and 9.Comment: Version 3: minor corrections from version 2. Published by Geometry and Topology at http://www.maths.warwick.ac.uk/gt/GTVol5/paper6.abs.htm

Spherical Orbifolds for Cosmic Topology

Harmonic analysis is a tool to infer cosmic topology from the measured astrophysical cosmic microwave background CMB radiation. For overall positive curvature, Platonic spherical manifolds are candidates for this analysis. We combine the specific point symmetry of the Platonic manifolds with their deck transformations. This analysis in topology leads from manifolds to orbifolds. We discuss the deck transformations of the orbifolds and give eigenmodes for the harmonic analysis as linear combinations of Wigner polynomials on the 3-sphere. These provide new tools for detecting cosmic topology from the CMB radiation.Comment: 17 pages, 9 figures. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1011.427

Ultrametric spaces of branches on arborescent singularities

Let $S$ be a normal complex analytic surface singularity. We say that $S$ is arborescent if the dual graph of any resolution of it is a tree. Whenever $A,B$ are distinct branches on $S$, we denote by $A \cdot B$ their intersection number in the sense of Mumford. If $L$ is a fixed branch, we define $U_L(A,B)= (L \cdot A)(L \cdot B)(A \cdot B)^{-1}$ when $A \neq B$ and $U_L(A,A) =0$ otherwise. We generalize a theorem of P{\l}oski concerning smooth germs of surfaces, by proving that whenever $S$ is arborescent, then $U_L$ is an ultrametric on the set of branches of $S$ different from $L$. We compute the maximum of $U_L$, which gives an analog of a theorem of Teissier. We show that $U_L$ encodes topological information about the structure of the embedded resolutions of any finite set of branches. This generalizes a theorem of Favre and Jonsson concerning the case when both $S$ and $L$ are smooth. We generalize also from smooth germs to arbitrary arborescent ones their valuative interpretation of the dual trees of the resolutions of $S$. Our proofs are based in an essential way on a determinantal identity of Eisenbud and Neumann.Comment: 37 pages, 16 figures. Compared to the first version on Arxiv, il has a new section 4.3, accompanied by 2 new figures. Several passages were clarified and the typos discovered in the meantime were correcte