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Petra Schwer

Publications and source records attributed to Petra Schwer.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

Conjugator length of locally compact groups of Euclidean isometries

We consider locally compact subgroups $H$ of the full isometry group $\Isom(\E^n)$ of Euclidean $n$-space which respect the splitting into an orthogonal and a translation subgroup. We prove that the conjugator length function of such groups either has zero growth, grows linearly, or is unbounded --- depending on the topology of the spherical part of $H$. Our theorem shows, in particular, that affine Coxeter groups and split crystallographic groups have linear growth for their conjugator length functions.

math.GR

How to read Mathematics? A study guide

Reading a math textbook isn't like reading a novel. You've probably already figured that out on your own. But how *do* you read mathematical texts? And how can you actually learn from a book or lecture notes? This document is a guide to independently reading and working through mathematical texts. Originally written as supplementary material for a flipped classroom course for first year math students it may serve as a detailed reading guide for anybody interested in math.

math.HO

The meaning of doing mathematics

Can AI solve all math? What do we actually mean by doing mathematics? How do we communicate mathematics? What is mathematics beyond problem solving? This essay is my attempt to answer these questions.

math.HO

The geometry of conjugation in Euclidean isometry groups

We describe the geometry of conjugation within any split subgroup $H$ of the full isometry group $G$ of $n$-dimensional Euclidean space. We prove that for any $h \in H$, the conjugacy class $[h]_H$ of $h$ is described geometrically by the move-set of its linearization, while the set of elements conjugating $h$ to a given $h'\in [h]_H$ is described by the the fix-set of its linearization. Examples include all affine Coxeter groups, certain crystallographic groups, and the group $G$ itself.

math.GR

The geometry of conjugation in affine Coxeter groups

We develop new and precise geometric descriptions of the conjugacy class $[x]$ and coconjugation set $\operatorname{C}(x,x') = \{ y \in \overline{W} \mid yxy^{-1} = x' \}$ for all elements $x,x'$ of any affine Coxeter group $\overline{W}$. The centralizer of $x$ in $\overline{W}$ is the special case $\operatorname{C}(x,x)$. The key structure in our description of the conjugacy class $[x]$ is the mod-set ${Mod}_{\overline{W}}(w) = (w-\operatorname{I})R^\vee$, where~$w$ is the finite part of $x$ and $R^\vee$ is the coroot lattice. The coconjugation set $\operatorname{C}(x,x')$ is then described by ${Mod}_{\overline{W}}(w')$ together with the fix-set of $w'$, where $w'$ is the finite part of $x'$. For any element $w$ of the associated finite Weyl group $W$, the mod-set of $w$ is contained in the classical move-set ${Mov}(w) = \operatorname{Im}(w - \operatorname{I})$. We prove that the rank of ${Mod}_{\overline{W}}(w)$ equals the dimension of ${Mov}(w)$, and then further investigate type-by-type the surprisingly subtle structure of the $\mathbb{Z}$-module ${Mod}_\overline{W}(w)$. As corollaries, we determine exactly when ${Mod}_{\overline{W}}(w) = {Mov}(w) \cap R^\vee$, in which case our closed-form descriptions of conjugacy classes and coconjugation sets are as simple as possible.

math.GR

Involutions in Coxeter groups

We combinatorially characterize the number $\mathrm{cc}_2$ of conjugacy classes of involutions in any Coxeter group in terms of higher rank odd graphs. This notion naturally generalizes the concept of odd graphs, used previously to count the number of conjugacy classes of reflections. We provide uniform bounds and discuss some extremal cases, where the number $\mathrm{cc}_2$ is smallest or largest possible. Moreover, we provide formulae for $\mathrm{cc}_2$ in free and direct products as well as for some finite and affine types, besides computing $\mathrm{cc}_2$ for all triangle groups, and all affine irreducible Coxeter groups of rank up to eleven.

math.GR

The galaxy of Coxeter groups

In this paper we introduce the galaxy of Coxeter groups -- an infinite dimensional, locally finite, ranked simplicial complex which captures isomorphisms between Coxeter systems. In doing so, we would like to suggest a new framework to study the isomorphism problem for Coxeter groups. We prove some structural results about this space, provide a full characterization in small ranks and propose many questions. In addition we survey known tools, results and conjectures. Along the way we show profinite rigidity of triangle Coxeter groups -- a result which is possibly of independent interest.

math.GR

Polyhedral compactifications, I

In this work we describe horofunction compactifications of metric spaces and finite dimensional real vector spaces through asymmetric metrics and asymmetric polyhedral norms by means of nonstandard methods, that is, ultrapowers of the spaces at hand. The polyhedral compactifications of the vector spaces carry the structure of stratified spaces with the strata indexed by dual faces of the polyhedral unit ball. Explicit neighborhood bases and descriptions of the horofunctions are provided.

math.MG

Chimney retractions in affine buildings encode orbits in affine flag varieties

This paper determines the relationship between the geometry of retractions and the combinatorics of folded galleries for arbitrary affine buildings, and so provides a unified framework to study orbits in affine flag varieties. We introduce the notion of labeled folded galleries for any affine building X and use these to describe the preimages of chimney retractions. When X is the building for a group with an affine Tits system, such as the Bruhat-Tits building for a group over a local field, we can then relate labeled folded galleries and shadows to double coset intersections in affine flag varieties. This result generalizes the authors' previous joint work with Naqvi on groups over function fields.

math.GR

TriCCo -- a cubulation-based method for computing connected components on triangular grids

We present a new method to identify connected components on triangular grids used in atmosphere and climate models to discretize the horizontal dimension. In contrast to structured latitude-longitude grids, triangular grids are unstructured and the neighbors of a grid cell do not simply follow from the grid cell index. This complicates the identification of connected components compared to structured grids. Here, we show that this complication can be addressed by involving the mathematical tool of cubulation, which allows one to map the 2-d cells of the triangular grid onto the vertices of the 3-d cells of a cubic grid. Because the latter is structured, connected components can be readily identified by previously developed software packages for cubic grids. Computing the cubulation can be expensive, but importantly needs to be done only once for a given grid. We implement our method in a Python package that we name TriCCo and make available via pypi, gitlab and zenodo. We document the package and demonstrate its application using simulation output from the ICON atmosphere model. Finally, we characterize its computational performance and compare it to graph-based identifications of connected components using breadth-first search. The latter shows that TriCCo is ready for triangular grids with up to 500,000 cells, but that its speed and memory requirement should be improved for the application to larger grids.

math.GR

Affine Deligne-Lusztig varieties and folded galleries governed by chimneys

We characterize the nonemptiness and dimension problems for an affine Deligne-Lusztig variety $X_x(b)$ in the affine flag variety in terms of galleries that are positively folded with respect to a chimney. If the parabolic subgroup associated to the Newton point of b has rank 1, we then prove nonemptiness for a certain class of Iwahori-Weyl group elements x by explicitly constructing such galleries.

math.AG

A gallery model for affine flag varieties via chimney retractions

This paper provides a unified combinatorial framework to study orbits in certain affine flag varieties via the associated Bruhat-Tits buildings. We first formulate, for arbitrary affine buildings, the notion of a chimney retraction. This simultaneously generalizes the two well-known notions of retractions in affine buildings: retractions from chambers at infinity and retractions from alcoves. We then present a recursive formula for computing the images of certain minimal galleries in the building under chimney retractions, using purely combinatorial tools associated to the underlying affine Weyl group. Finally, for Bruhat-Tits buildings in the function field case, we relate these retractions and their effect on minimal galleries to double coset intersections in the corresponding affine flag variety.

math.RT

Shadows in the wild -- folded galleries and their applications

This survey is about combinatorial objects related to reflection groups and their applications in representation theory and arithmetic geometry. Coxeter groups and folded galleries in Coxeter complexes are introduced in detail and illustrated by examples. Further it is explained how they relate to retractions in Bruhat-Tits buildings and to the geometry of affine flag varieties and affine Grassmannians. The goal is to make these topics accessible to a wide audience.

math.RT

The triangle groups (2,4,5) and (2,5,5) are not systolic

In this paper we provide new examples of hyperbolic but nonsystolic groups by showing that the triangle groups $(2,4,5)$ and $(2,5,5)$ are not systolic. Along the way we prove some results about subsets of systolic complexes stable under involutions.

math.GR

Shadows in Coxeter groups

For a given $w$ in a Coxeter group $W$ the elements $u$ smaller than $w$ in Bruhat order can be seen as the end-alcoves of stammering galleries of type $w$ in the Coxeter complex $Σ$. We generalize this notion and consider sets of end-alcoves of galleries that are positively folded with respect to certain orientation $ϕ$ of $Σ$. We call these sets shadows. Positively folded galleries are closely related to the geometric study of affine Deligne-Lusztig varieties, MV polytopes, Hall-Littlewood polynomials and many more agebraic structures. In this paper we will introduce various notions of orientations and hence shadows and study some of their algorithmic properties.

math.CO

Lecture notes on CAT(0) cube complexes

These notes grew out of two lectures I have given on CAT(0) cube complexes. I've tried to keep the material elementary and self-contained in order to keep the material easily accessible and to provide an elementary introduction on the topic for advanced bachelor students or early master students with little to no previous knowledge on geometric group theory or CAT(0) geometry.

math.GR

A structure theorem for euclidean buildings

We prove an affine analog of Scharlau's reduction theorem for spherical buildings. To be a bit more precise let $X$ be a euclidean building with spherical building $\partial X$ at infinity. Then there exists a euclidean building $\bar X$ such that $X$ splits as a product of $\bar X$ with some euclidean $k$-space such that $\partial \bar X$ is the thick reduction of $\partial X$ in the sense of Scharlau. \newline In addition we prove a converse statement saying that an embedding of a thick spherical building at infinity extends to an embedding of the euclidean building having the extended spherical building as its boundary.

math.MG

Root operators, root groups and retractions

We prove that the Gaussent--Littelmann root operators on galleries can be expressed purely in terms of retractions of a (Bruhat-Tits) building. In addition we establish a connection to the root datum at infinity.

math.RT