arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Jennifer Brooks.
We investigate the zeros of two one-parameter families of harmonic functions and describe how the number of zeros depends on the parameter. Our functions have the property that all zeros lie on certain rays in the complex plane and thus we are able to use real-variable techniques to count the zeros on each ray.
We construct CR mappings between spheres that are invariant under actions of finite unitary groups. In particular, we combine a tensoring procedure with D'Angelo's construction of a canonical group-invariant CR mapping to obtain new invariant mappings. We also explore possible gap phenomena in this setting.
We study real bihomogeneous polynomials $r(z,\bar{z})$ in $n$ complex variables for which $r(z,\bar{z}) \|z\|^2$ is the squared norm of a holomorphic polynomial mapping. Such polynomials are the focus of the Sum of Squares Conjecture, which describes the possible ranks for the squared norm $r(z,\bar{z}) \|z\|^2$ and has important implications for the study of proper holomorphic mappings between balls in complex Euclidean spaces of different dimension. Questions about the possible signatures for $r(z,\bar{z})$ and the rank of $r(z,\bar{z}) \|z\|^2$ can be reformulated as questions about polynomial ideals. We take this approach and apply purely algebraic tools to obtain constraints on the signature of $r$.
The goal of this article is to prove the Sum of Squares Conjecture for real polynomials $r(z,\bar{z})$ on $\mathbb{C}^3$ with diagonal coefficient matrix. This conjecture describes the possible values for the rank of $r(z,\bar{z}) \|z\|^2$ under the hypothesis that $r(z,\bar{z})\|z\|^2=\|h(z)\|^2$ for some holomorphic polynomial mapping $h$. Our approach is to connect this problem to the degree estimates problem for proper holomorphic monomial mappings from the unit ball in $\mathbb{C}^2$ to the unit ball in $\mathbb{C}^k$. D'Angelo, Kos, and Riehl proved the sharp degree estimates theorem in this setting, and we give a new proof using techniques from commutative algebra. We then complete the proof of the Sum of Squares Conjecture in this case using similar algebraic techniques.