Arithmetic groups with isomorphic finite quotients

Two finitely generated groups have the same set of finite quotients if and only if their profinite completions are isomorphic. Consider the map which sends (the isomorphism class of) an S-arithmetic group to (the isomorphism class of) its profinite completion. We show that for a wide class of S-arithmetic groups, this map is finite to one, while the the fibers are of unbounded size.Comment: Minor revisions. To appear in Journal of Algebr

Integer points and their orthogonal lattices

Linnik proved in the late 1950's the equidistribution of integer points on large spheres under a congruence condition. The congruence condition was lifted in 1988 by Duke (building on a break-through by Iwaniec) using completely different techniques. We conjecture that this equidistribution result also extends to the pairs consisting of a vector on the sphere and the shape of the lattice in its orthogonal complement. We use a joining result for higher rank diagonalizable actions to obtain this conjecture under an additional congruence condition.Comment: 15 pages, and 6 pages of appendix, (Appendix by Ruixiang Zhang

Simultaneous supersingular reductions of CM elliptic curves

We study the simultaneous reductions at several supersingular primes of elliptic curves with complex multiplication. We show -- under additional congruence assumptions on the CM order -- that the reductions are surjective (and even become equidistributed) on the product of supersingular loci when the discriminant of the order becomes large. This variant of the equidistribution theorems of Duke and Cornut-Vatsal is an(other) application of the recent work of Einsiedler and Lindenstrauss on the classification of joinings of higher-rank diagonalizable actions.Comment: 46 pages. Revised according to the referee's comment

Integer points on spheres and their orthogonal grids

The set of primitive vectors on large spheres in the euclidean space of dimension d>2 equidistribute when projected on the unit sphere. We consider here a refinement of this problem concerning the direction of the vector together with the shape of the lattice in its orthogonal complement. Using unipotent dynamics we obtained the desired equidistribution result in dimension d>5 and in dimension d=4,5 under a mild congruence condition on the square of the radius. The case of d=3 is considered in a separate paper.Comment: 20 pages. To appear in the Journal of the London Mathematical Societ

On metric diophantine approximation in matrices and Lie groups

We study the diophantine exponent of analytic submanifolds of the space of m by n real matrices, answering questions of Beresnevich, Kleinbock and Margulis. We identify a family of algebraic obstructions to the extremality of such a submanifold, and give a formula for the exponent when the submanifold is algebraic and defined over the rationals. We then apply these results to the determination of the diophantine exponent of rational nilpotent Lie groups.Comment: Theorem 3.4 was modified. To appear in Comptes Rendus Mathematiqu

Planes in four space and four associated CM points

To any two-dimensional rational plane in four-dimensional space one can naturally attach a point in the Grassmannian Gr(2,4) and four lattices of rank two. Here, the first two lattices originate from the plane and its orthogonal complement and the second two essentially arise from the accidental local isomorphism between SO(4) and SO(3)xSO(3). As an application of a recent result of Einsiedler and Lindenstrauss on algebraicity of joinings we prove simultaneous equidistribution of all of these objects under two splitting conditions