On an argument of J.--F. Cardoso dealing with perturbations of joint diagonalizers

B. Afsari has recently proposed a new approach to the matrix joint diagonalization, introduced by J.--F. Cardoso in 1994, in order to investigate the independent component analysis and the blind signal processing in a wider prospective. Delicate notions of linear algebra and differential geometry are involved in the works of B. Afsari and the present paper continues such a line of research, focusing on a theoretical condition which has significant consequences in the numerical applications.Comment: 9 pages; the published version contains significant revisions (suggested by the referees

On the Connectivity of the Sylow Graph of a Finite Group

The Sylow graph $\Gamma(G)$ of a finite group $G$ originated from recent investigations on the so--called $\mathbf{N}$--closed classes of groups. The connectivity of $\Gamma(G)$ was proved only few years ago, involving the classification of finite simple groups, and the structure of $G$ may be strongly restricted, once information on $\Gamma(G)$ are given. The first result of the present paper deals with a condition on $\mathbf{N}$--closed classes of groups. The second result deals with a computational criterion, related to the connectivity of $\Gamma(G)$.Comment: 8 pp. with Appendix; Fundamental revisions have been don

Functional it{\^o} versus banach space stochastic calculus and strict solutions of semilinear path-dependent equations

Functional It\^o calculus was introduced in order to expand a functional $F(t, X\_{\cdot+t}, X\_t)$ depending on time $t$, past and present values of the process $X$. Another possibility to expand $F(t, X\_{\cdot+t}, X\_t)$ consists in considering the path $X\_{\cdot+t}=\{X\_{x+t},\,x\in[-T,0]\}$ as an element of the Banach space of continuous functions on $C([-T,0])$ and to use Banach space stochastic calculus. The aim of this paper is threefold. 1) To reformulate functional It\^o calculus, separating time and past, making use of the regularization procedures which matches more naturally the notion of horizontal derivative which is one of the tools of that calculus. 2) To exploit this reformulation in order to discuss the (not obvious) relation between the functional and the Banach space approaches. 3) To study existence and uniqueness of smooth solutions to path-dependent partial differential equations which naturally arise in the study of functional It\^o calculus. More precisely, we study a path-dependent equation of Kolmogorov type which is related to the window process of the solution to an It\^o stochastic differential equation with path-dependent coefficients. We also study a semilinear version of that equation.Comment: This paper is a substantial improvement with additional research material of the first part of the unpublished paper arXiv:1401.503

About Fokker-Planck equation with measurable coefficients and applications to the fast diffusion equation

The object of this paper is the uniqueness for a $d$-dimensional Fokker-Planck type equation with non-homogeneous (possibly degenerated) measurable not necessarily bounded coefficients. We provide an application to the probabilistic representation of the so called Barenblatt solution of the fast diffusion equation which is the partial differential equation $\partial_t u = \partial^2_{xx} u^m$ with $m\in(0,1)$. Together with the mentioned Fokker-Planck equation, we make use of small time density estimates uniformly with respect to the initial conditio

Some extremal contractions between smooth varieties arising from projective geometry

We construct explicit examples of elementary extremal contractions, both birational and of fiber type, from smooth projective n-dimensional varieties, n\geq 4, onto smooth projective varieties, arising from classical projective geometry and defined over sufficiently small fields, not necessarily algebraically closed. The examples considered come from particular special homaloidal and subhomaloidal linear systems, which usually are degenerations of general phenomena classically investigated by Bordiga, Severi, Todd, Room, Fano, Semple and Tyrrell and more recently by Ein and Shepherd-Barron. The first series of examples is associated to particular codimension 2 determinantal smooth subvarieties of P^m, 3\leq m\leq 5. We get another series of examples by considering special cubic hypersurfaces through some surfaces in P^5, or some 3-folds in P^7 having one apparent double point. The last examples come from an intriguing birational elementary extremal contraction in dimension 6, studied by Semple and Tyrrell and fully described in the last section.Comment: 29 pages. Proc. London Math. Society, to appea