Quadratic Chabauty for (bi)elliptic curves and Kim's conjecture

We explore a number of problems related to the quadratic Chabauty method for determining integral points on hyperbolic curves. We remove the assumption of semistability in the description of the quadratic Chabauty sets $\mathcal{X}(\mathbb{Z}_p)_2$ containing the integral points $\mathcal{X}(\mathbb{Z})$ of an elliptic curve of rank at most $1$. Motivated by a conjecture of Kim, we then investigate theoretically and computationally the set-theoretic difference $\mathcal{X}(\mathbb{Z}_p)_2\setminus \mathcal{X}(\mathbb{Z})$. We also consider some algorithmic questions arising from Balakrishnan--Dogra's explicit quadratic Chabauty for the rational points of a genus-two bielliptic curve. As an example, we provide a new solution to a problem of Diophantus which was first solved by Wetherell. Computationally, the main difference from the previous approach to quadratic Chabauty is the use of the $p$-adic sigma function in place of a double Coleman integral.Comment: Replaced Conjecture 4.12 with Theorem 1.8; rewrote the introduction and fixed minor issues according to the referee's and PhD examiners' suggestions; 42 page

Towards Spinfoam Cosmology

We compute the transition amplitude between coherent quantum-states of geometry peaked on homogeneous isotropic metrics. We use the holomorphic representations of loop quantum gravity and the Kaminski-Kisielowski-Lewandowski generalization of the new vertex, and work at first order in the vertex expansion, second order in the graph (multipole) expansion, and first order in 1/volume. We show that the resulting amplitude is in the kernel of a differential operator whose classical limit is the canonical hamiltonian of a Friedmann-Robertson-Walker cosmology. This result is an indication that the dynamics of loop quantum gravity defined by the new vertex yields the Friedmann equation in the appropriate limit.Comment: 8 page