arXiv subjects

Michael Hoff

Publications and source records attributed to Michael Hoff.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2024

Transition to turbulence in the wide-gap spherical Couette system

The spherical Couette system consists of two differentially rotating concentric spheres with a fluid filled in between. We study a regime where the outer sphere is rotating rapidly enough so that the Coriolis force is important and the inner sphere is rotating either slower or in the opposite direction with respect to the outer sphere. We numerically study the sudden transition to turbulence at a critical differential rotation seen in experiments at BTU Cottbus - Senftenberg, Germany and investigate its cause. We find that the source of turbulence is the boundary layer on the inner sphere, which becomes centrifugally unstable. We show that this instability leads to generation of small scale structures which lead to turbulence in the bulk, dominated by inertial waves, a change in the force balance near the inner boundary, the formation of a mean flow through Reynolds stresses, and consequently, to an efficient angular momentum transport. We compare our findings with axisymmetric simulations and show that there are significant similarities in the nature of the flow in the turbulent regimes of full 3D and axisymmetric simulations but differences in the evolution of the instability that leads to this transition. We find that a heuristic argument based on a Reynolds number defined using the thickness of the boundary layer as a length scale helps explain the scaling law of the variation of critical differential rotation for transition to turbulence with rotation rate observed in the experiments.

physics.flu-dyn↗

arXiv2022

Flexibility of Affine cones over Mukai fourfolds of genus $g\ge7$

We show that the affine cones over a general Fano-Mukai fourfold of genus $g=7$, $8$ and $9$ are flexible. Equivalently, there is an infinitely transitive action of the special automorphism group on such affine cones. In particular, any Mukai fourfold of genus $7,8$ and $9$ is $\Bbb A^2$-cylindrical.

math.AG↗

arXiv2022

Movable cones of complete intersections of multidegree one on products of projective spaces

We study Calabi-Yau manifolds which are complete intersections of hypersurfaces of multidegree $1$ in an $m$-fold product of $n$-dimensional projective spaces. Using the theory of Coxeter groups, we show that the birational automorphism group of such a Calabi-Yau manifold $X$ is infinite and a free product of copies of $\mathbb{Z}$ . Moreover, we give an explicit description of the boundary of the movable cone $\overline{\operatorname{Mov}}(X)$. In the end, we consider examples for the general and non-general case and picture the movable cone and the fundamental domain for the action of $\operatorname{Bir}(X)$.

math.AG↗

arXiv2021

On the numerical dimension of Calabi-Yau 3-folds of Picard number 2

We show that for any smooth Calabi-Yau threefold $X$ of Picard number $2$ with infinite birational automorphism group, the numerical dimension $\kappa_\sigma$ of the extremal rays of the movable cone of $X$ is $\frac{3}{2}$. Furthermore, we provide new examples of Calabi-Yau threefolds of Picard number $2$ with infinite birational automorphism group.

math.AG↗

arXiv2021

Explicit constructions of K3 surfaces and unirational Noether-Lefschetz divisors

We provide methods to construct explicit examples of $K3$ surfaces. This leads to unirational constructions of Noether--Lefschetz divisors inside the moduli space of $K3$ surfaces of genus $g$. We implement Mukai's unirationality construction of the moduli spaces of $K3$ surfaces of genus $g\in\{6,\dots, 10, 12\}$, and we also present a new constructive proof of the unirationality of the moduli space of $K3$ surfaces of genus $11$. Furthermore, we show the existence of three unirational hypersurfaces in any moduli space of $K3$ surfaces of genus $g$.

math.AG↗

arXiv2021

A note on syzygies and normal generation for trigonal curves

Let $C$ be a trigonal curve of genus $g\ge 5$ and let $T$ be the unique trigonal line bundle inducing a map $\pi: C \stackrel{3:1}{\longrightarrow} \mathbb{P}^1$. This note provides a short and easy proof of the normal generation for the residual line bundle $K_C\otimes T^{-1}$ for curves of genus $g\ge 7$. Moreover, we compute the minimal free resolution of the embedded curve $C\subset \mathbb{P}(H^0(C,K_C\otimes T^{-n})^*)$ for the residual line bundle $K_C\otimes T^{-n}$ for $n\ge 1$ and $g \ge 3n+4$.

math.AG↗

arXiv2021

On cylindrical smooth rational Fano fourfolds

We construct new families of smooth Fano fourfolds with Picard rank $1$ which contain open $\Bbb A^1$-cylinders, that is, Zariski open subsets of the form $Z \times \Bbb A^1$, where $Z$ is a quasiprojective variety. In particular, we show that every Mukai fourfold of genus $8$ is cylindrical and there exists a family of cylindrical Gushel-Mukai fourfolds.

math.AG↗

arXiv2020

Unirational moduli spaces of some elliptic K3 surfaces

We show that the moduli space of $U\oplus \langle -2k \rangle$-polarized K3 surfaces is unirational for $k \le 50$ and $k \notin \{11,35,42,48\}$, and for other several values of $k$ up to $k=97$. Our proof is based on a systematic study of the projective models of elliptic K3 surfaces in $\mathbb{P}^n$ for $3\le n \le 5$ containing either the union of two rational curves or the union of a rational and an elliptic curve intersecting at one point.

math.AG↗

arXiv2020

Embodied Synaptic Plasticity with Online Reinforcement learning

The endeavor to understand the brain involves multiple collaborating research fields. Classically, synaptic plasticity rules derived by theoretical neuroscientists are evaluated in isolation on pattern classification tasks. This contrasts with the biological brain which purpose is to control a body in closed-loop. This paper contributes to bringing the fields of computational neuroscience and robotics closer together by integrating open-source software components from these two fields. The resulting framework allows to evaluate the validity of biologically-plausibe plasticity models in closed-loop robotics environments. We demonstrate this framework to evaluate Synaptic Plasticity with Online REinforcement learning (SPORE), a reward-learning rule based on synaptic sampling, on two visuomotor tasks: reaching and lane following. We show that SPORE is capable of learning to perform policies within the course of simulated hours for both tasks. Provisional parameter explorations indicate that the learning rate and the temperature driving the stochastic processes that govern synaptic learning dynamics need to be regulated for performance improvements to be retained. We conclude by discussing the recent deep reinforcement learning techniques which would be beneficial to increase the functionality of SPORE on visuomotor tasks.

cs.NE↗

arXiv2020

Brill-Noether general K3 surfaces with the maximal number of elliptic pencils of minimal degree

We explicitly construct Brill--Noether general $K3$ surfaces of genus $4,6$ and $8$ having the maximal number of elliptic pencils of degrees $3, 4$ and $5$, respectively, and study their moduli spaces and moduli maps to the moduli space of curves. As an application we prove the existence of Brill--Noether general $K3$ surfaces of genus $4$ and $6$ without stable Lazarsfeld--Mukai bundles of minimal $c_2$.

math.AG↗

arXiv2019

New examples of rational Gushel-Mukai fourfolds

We construct new examples of rational Gushel-Mukai fourfolds, giving more evidence for the analog of the Kuznetsov Conjecture for cubic fourfolds: a Gushel--Mukai fourfold is rational if and only if it admits an associated K3 surface.

math.AG↗

arXiv2018

The relative canonical resolution: Macaulay2-package, experiments and conjectures

This short note provides a quick introduction to relative canonical resolutions of curves on rational normal scrolls. We present our Macaulay2-package which computes the relative canonical resolution associated to a curve and a pencil of divisors. Most of our experimental data can be found on a dedicated webpage. We end with a list of conjectural shapes of relative canonical resolutions. In particular, for curves of genus $g=n\cdot k +1$ and pencils of degree $k$ for $n\ge 1$, we conjecture that the syzygy divisors on the Hurwitz space $\mathscr{H}_{g,k}$ constructed by Deopurkar and Patel all have the same support.

math.AG↗

arXiv2018

Nonemptiness and smoothness of twisted Brill-Noether loci

Let $V$ be a vector bundle over a smooth curve $C$. In this paper, we study twisted Brill--Noether loci parametrising stable bundles $E$ of rank $n$ and degree $e$ with the property that $h^0 (C, V \otimes E) \ge k$. We prove that, under conditions similar to those of Teixidor i Bigas and of Mercat, the Brill-Noether loci are nonempty, and in many cases have a component which is generically smooth and of the expected dimension. Along the way, we prove the irreducibility of certain components of both twisted and "nontwisted" Brill--Noether loci. We describe the tangent cones to the twisted Brill-Noether loci. We end with an example of a general bundle over a general curve having positive-dimensional twisted Brill--Noether loci with negative expected dimension.

math.AG↗

arXiv2017

Focal schemes to families of secant spaces to canonical curves

This article is a generalisation of results of Ciliberto and Sernesi. For a general canonically embedded curve $C$ of genus $g\geq 5$, let $d\le g-1$ be an integer such that the Brill--Noether number $\rho(g,d,1)=g-2(g-d+1)\geq 1$. We study the family of $d$-secant $\mathbb{P}^{d-2}$'s to $C$ induced by the smooth locus of the Brill--Noether locus $W^1_d(C)$. Using the theory of foci and a structure theorem for the rank one locus of special $1$-generic matrices by Eisenbud and Harris, we prove a Torelli-type theorem for general curves by reconstructing the curve from its Brill--Noether loci $W^1_d(C)$ of dimension at least $1$.

math.AG↗

arXiv2017

A study of turbulence and interacting inertial modes in a differentially-rotating spherical shell experiment

We present a study of inertial modes in a differentially rotating spherical shell (spherical Couette flow) experiment with a radius ratio of $η= 1/3$. Inertial modes are Coriolis-restored linear wave modes which often arise in rapidly rotating fluids. Recent experimental work has shown that inertial modes exist in a spherical Couette flow for $Ω_{i}<Ω_{o}$, where $Ω_i$ and $Ω_o$ is the inner and outer sphere rotation rate. A finite number of particular inertial modes has previously been found. By scanning the Rossby number from $-2.5 < Ro = (Ω_{i}-Ω_{o})/Ω_{o} < 0$ at two fixed $Ω_{o}$, we report the existence of similar inertial modes. However, the behavior of the flow described here differs much from previous spherical Couette experiments. We show that the kinetic energy of the dominant inertial mode dramatically increases with decreasing Rossby number that eventually leads to a wave-breaking and an increase of small-scale structures at a critical Rossby number. Such a transition in a spherical Couette flow has not been described before. The critical Rossby number scales with the Ekman number as0 $E^{1/5}$. Additionally, the increase of small-scale features beyond the transition transfers energy to a massively enhanced mean flow around the tangent cylinder. In this context, we discuss an interaction between the dominant inertial modes with a geostrophic Rossby mode exciting secondary modes whose frequencies match the triadic resonance condition.

physics.flu-dyn↗

arXiv2017

Moduli of lattice polarized K3 surfaces via relative canonical resolutions

For a smooth canonically embedded curve $C$ of genus $9$ together with a pencil $|L|$ of degree $6$, we study the relative canonical resolution of $C\subset X\subset \mathbb{P}^8$, where $X$ is the scroll swept out by the pencil $|L|$. We show that the second syzygy bundle in this resolution of $C\subset X$ is unbalanced. The proof reveals a new geometric connection between the universal Brill--Noether variety $\mathcal{W}^1_{9,6}$ and a moduli space $\mathcal{F}^\mathfrak{h}$ of lattice polarized $K3$ surfaces (for a certain rank $3$ lattice $\mathfrak{h}$). As a by-product we prove the unirationality of $\mathcal{F}^\mathfrak{h}$ and show that $\mathcal{W}^1_{9,6}$ is birational to a projective bundle over a moduli space of lattice polarized $K3$ surfaces $\mathcal{F}^{\mathfrak{h}'}$ for a certain rank $4$ lattice $\mathfrak{h}'$ which contains $\mathfrak{h}$ as a sublattice.

math.AG↗

arXiv2017

Tangent cones to generalised theta divisors and generic injectivity of the theta map

Let $C$ be a Petri general curve of genus $g$ and $E$ a general stable vector bundle of rank $r$ and slope $g-1$ over $C$ with $h^0 (C, E) = r+1$. For $g > (2r+2)(2r+1)$, we show how the bundle $E$ can be recovered from the tangent cone to the theta divisor $Θ_E$ at ${\mathcal O}_C$. We use this to give a constructive proof and a sharpening of Brivio and Verra's theorem that the theta map $SU_C (r) -rightarrow |r Θ|$ is generically injective for large values of $g$.

math.AG↗

arXiv2015

The Osculating cone to special Brill-Noether Loci

In this paper, we describe the osculating cone to Brill-Noether loci $W^{0}_{d}(C)$ at smooth isolated points of $W^{1}_{d}(C)$ for a smooth canonically embedded curve $C$ of even genus $g=2(d-1)$. In particular, we show that the canonical curve $C$ is a component of the osculating cone. The proof is based on techniques introduced by George Kempf in 1986.

math.AG↗