1-Safe Petri nets and special cube complexes: equivalence and applications

Nielsen, Plotkin, and Winskel (1981) proved that every 1-safe Petri net $N$ unfolds into an event structure $\mathcal{E}_N$. By a result of Thiagarajan (1996 and 2002), these unfoldings are exactly the trace regular event structures. Thiagarajan (1996 and 2002) conjectured that regular event structures correspond exactly to trace regular event structures. In a recent paper (Chalopin and Chepoi, 2017, 2018), we disproved this conjecture, based on the striking bijection between domains of event structures, median graphs, and CAT(0) cube complexes. On the other hand, in Chalopin and Chepoi (2018) we proved that Thiagarajan's conjecture is true for regular event structures whose domains are principal filters of universal covers of (virtually) finite special cube complexes. In the current paper, we prove the converse: to any finite 1-safe Petri net $N$ one can associate a finite special cube complex ${X}_N$ such that the domain of the event structure $\mathcal{E}_N$ (obtained as the unfolding of $N$) is a principal filter of the universal cover $\widetilde{X}_N$ of $X_N$. This establishes a bijection between 1-safe Petri nets and finite special cube complexes and provides a combinatorial characterization of trace regular event structures. Using this bijection and techniques from graph theory and geometry (MSO theory of graphs, bounded treewidth, and bounded hyperbolicity) we disprove yet another conjecture by Thiagarajan (from the paper with S. Yang from 2014) that the monadic second order logic of a 1-safe Petri net is decidable if and only if its unfolding is grid-free. Our counterexample is the trace regular event structure $\mathcal{\dot E}_Z$ which arises from a virtually special square complex $\dot Z$. The domain of $\mathcal{\dot E}_Z$ is grid-free (because it is hyperbolic), but the MSO theory of the event structure $\mathcal{\dot E}_Z$ is undecidable

Branched Coverings, Triangulations, and 3-Manifolds

A canonical branched covering over each sufficiently good simplicial complex is constructed. Its structure depends on the combinatorial type of the complex. In this way, each closed orientable 3-manifold arises as a branched covering over the 3-sphere from some triangulation of S^3. This result is related to a theorem of Hilden and Montesinos. The branched coverings introduced admit a rich theory in which the group of projectivities plays a central role.Comment: v2: several changes to the text body; minor correction

Hyperbolic Unfoldings of Minimal Hypersurfaces

We study the intrinsic geometry of area minimizing (and also of almost minimizing) hypersurfaces from a new point of view by relating this subject to quasiconformal geometry. For any such hypersurface we define and construct a so-called S-structure which reveals some unexpected geometric and analytic properties of the hypersurface and its singularity set. In this paper, this is used to prove the existence of hyperbolic unfoldings: canonical conformal deformations of the regular part of these hypersurfaces into complete Gromov hyperbolic spaces of bounded geometry with Gromov boundary homeomorphic to the singular set

The moduli space of germs of generic families of analytic diffeomorphisms unfolding a parabolic fixed point

In this paper we describe the moduli space of germs of generic families of analytic diffeomorphisms which unfold a parabolic fixed point of codimension 1. In [MRR] (and also [R]), it was shown that the Ecalle-Voronin modulus can be unfolded to give a complete modulus for such germs. The modulus is defined on a ramified sector in the canonical perturbation parameter \eps. As in the case of the Ecalle-Voronin modulus, the modulus is defined up to a linear scaling depending only on \eps. Here, we characterize the moduli space for such unfoldings by finding the compatibility conditions on the modulus which are necessary and sufficient for realization as the modulus of an unfolding. The compatibility condition is obtained by considering the region of sectorial overlap in \eps-space. This lies in the Glutsyuk sector where the two fixed points are hyperbolic and connected by the orbits of the diffeomorphism. In this region we have two representatives of the modulus which describe the same dynamics. We identify the necessary compatibility condition between these two representatives by comparing them both with their common Glutsyuk modulus. The compatibility condition implies the existence of a linear scaling for which the modulus is 1/2-summable in \eps, whose direction of non-summability coincides with the direction of real multipliers at the fixed points. Conversely, we show that the compatibility condition (which implies the summability property) is sufficient to realize the modulus as coming from an analytic unfolding, thus giving a complete description of the space of moduli.Comment: 48 page