arXiv subjects

Robert J. Lemke Oliver

Publications and source records attributed to Robert J. Lemke Oliver.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

The strong form of Van der Waerden's conjecture via twisted Chowla

Determining the properties of a random polynomial has fuelled significant investigation over the past century. One driving force of this research is a 1936 paper of Van der Waerden. Fix $n \ge 3$ and let $E_n(B)$ be the number of monic, irreducible, non-$S_n$ polynomials $f = X^n + a_1 X^{n-1} + \cdots + a_n$ with $|a_j| \leq B$ for all $j$. A recent breakthrough of Bhargava bounds $E_n(B) \ll B^{n-1}$. This spectacularly resolves a conjecture of Van der Waerden, but leaves open its stronger form, namely that $E_n(B) = o(B^{n-1})$. Inspired by recent progress, we now prove this stronger form for all $n \ge 40$. Bhargava's result, together with work of Chow and Dietmann, essentially reduces the strong Van der Waerden conjecture to the claim that the number of polynomials $f$ with Galois group $A_n$ is $o(B^{n-1})$. We connect this claim to Chowla's conjecture, an area driving major mathematical progress. Indeed, we formulate a twisted function field version of Chowla's conjecture, and show how Van der Waerden's conjecture reduces to this conjecture for $n \ge 8$. Finally, we make significant progress towards this twisted Chowla conjecture, leading to our resolution of the strong form of Van der Waerden's conjecture for all $n \geq 40$.

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arXiv2026

Effective Brauer-Siegel theorems for Artin $L$-functions

Given a number field $K \neq \mathbb{Q}$, in a now classic work, Stark pinpointed the possible source of a so-called Landau-Siegel zero of the Dedekind zeta function $ζ_K(s)$ and used this to give effective upper and lower bounds on the residue of $ζ_K(s)$ at $s=1$. We extend Stark's work to give effective upper and lower bounds for the leading term of the Laurent expansion of general Artin $L$-functions at $s=1$ that are, up to the value of implied constants, as strong as could reasonably be expected given current progress toward the generalized Riemann hypothesis. Our bounds are completely unconditional, and rely on no unproven hypotheses about Artin $L$-functions.

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arXiv2026

Counting number fields of fixed degree by their smallest defining polynomial

When do two irreducible polynomials with integer coefficients define the same number field? One can define an action of $\mathrm{GL}_2 \times \mathrm{GL}_1$ on the space of polynomials of degree $n$ so that for any two polynomials $f$ and $g$ in the same orbit, the roots of $f$ may be expressed as rational linear transformations of the roots of $g$; thus, they generate the same field. In this article, we show that almost all polynomials of degree $n$ with size at most $X$ can only define the same number field as another polynomial of degree $n$ with size at most $X$ if they lie in the same orbit for this group action. (Here we measure the size of polynomials by the greatest absolute value of their coefficients.) This improves on work of Bhargava, Shankar, and Wang, who proved a similar statement for a positive proportion of polynomials. Using this result, we prove that the number of degree $n$ fields such that the smallest polynomial defining the field has size at most $X$ is asymptotic to a constant times $X^{n+1}$ as long as $n\geq 3$. For $n = 2$, we obtain a precise asymptotic of the form $\frac{27}{π^2} X^2$.

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arXiv2025

The least prime with a given cycle type

Let $G$ be a finite group. Let $K/k$ be a Galois extension of number fields with Galois group isomorphic to $G$, and let $C \subseteq \mathrm{Gal}(K/k) \simeq G$ be a conjugacy invariant subset. It is well known that there exists an unramified prime ideal $\mathfrak{p}$ of $k$ with Frobenius element lying in $C$ and norm satisfying $\mathrm{N}\mathfrak{p} \ll |\mathrm{Disc}(K)|^α$ for some constant $α= α(G,C)$. There is a rich literature establishing unconditional admissible values for $α$, with most approaches proceeding by studying the zeros of $L$-functions. We give an alternative approach, not relying on zeros, that often substantially improves this exponent $α$ for any fixed finite group $G$, provided $C$ is a union of rational equivalence classes. As a particularly striking example, we prove that there exist absolute constants $c_1,c_2 > 0$ such that for any $n\geq 2$ and any conjugacy class $C \subset S_n$, one may take $α(S_n,C) = c_1 \exp(-c_2n)$. Our approach reduces the core problem to a question in character theory.

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arXiv2025

Asymptotics for $6$-torsion and $D_6$-extensions

We prove a composite case of the Cohen--Lenstra--Gerth heuristics. Specifically, we establish an asymptotic for the average $6$-torsion of the class group of quadratic number fields. We also prove Malle's conjecture for Galois $D_6$-extensions.

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arXiv2025

Characterizing the support of semiclassical measures for higher-dimensional cat maps

Quantum cat maps are toy models in quantum chaos associated to hyperbolic symplectic matrices $A\in \operatorname{Sp}(2n,\mathbb{Z})$. The macroscopic limits of sequences of eigenfunctions of a quantum cat map are characterized by semiclassical measures on the torus $\mathbb{R}^{2n}/\mathbb{Z}^{2n}$. We show that if the characteristic polynomial of every power $A^k$ is irreducible over the rationals, then every semiclassical measure has full support. The proof uses an earlier strategy of Dyatlov-Jézéquel [arXiv:2108.10463] and the higher-dimensional fractal uncertainty principle of Cohen [arXiv:2305.05022]. Our irreducibility condition is generically true, in fact we show that asymptotically for $100\%$ of matrices $A$, the Galois group of the characteristic polynomial of $A$ is $S_2 \wr S_n$. When the irreducibility condition does not hold, we show that a semiclassical measure cannot be supported on a finite union of parallel non-coisotropic subtori. On the other hand, we give examples of semiclassical measures supported on the union of two transversal symplectic subtori for $n=2$, inspired by the work of Faure-Nonnenmacher-De Bièvre [arXiv:nlin/0207060] in the case $n=1$. This is complementary to the examples by Kelmer [arXiv:math-ph/0510079] of semiclassical measures supported on a single coisotropic subtorus.

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arXiv2025

Improving the trivial bound for $\ell$-torsion in class groups

For any number field $K$ with $D_K=|\mathrm{Disc}(K)|$ and any integer $\ell \geq 2$, we improve over the commonly cited trivial bound $|\mathrm{Cl}_K[\ell]| \leq |\mathrm{Cl}_K| \ll_{[K:\mathbb{Q}],\varepsilon} D_K^{1/2+\varepsilon}$ on the $\ell$-torsion subgroup of the class group of $K$ by showing that $|\mathrm{Cl}_K[\ell]| = o_{[K:\mathbb{Q}],\ell}(D_K^{1/2})$. In fact, we obtain an explicit log-power saving. This is the first general unconditional saving over the trivial bound that holds for all $K$ and all $\ell$.

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arXiv2025

Inductive methods for counting number fields

We give a new method for counting extensions of a number field asymptotically by discriminant, which we employ to prove many new cases of Malle's Conjecture and counterexamples to Malle's Conjecture. We consider families of extensions whose Galois closure is a fixed permutation group $G$. Our method relies on having asymptotic counts for $T$-extensions for some normal subgroup $T$ of $G$, uniform bounds for the number of such $T$-extensions, and possibly weak bounds on the asymptotic number of $G/T$-extensions. However, we do not require that most $T$-extensions of a $G/T$-extension are $G$-extensions. Our new results use $T$ either abelian or $S_3^m$, though our framework is general.

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arXiv2024

Improved bounds on number fields of small degree

We study the number of degree $n$ number fields with discriminant bounded by $X$. In this article, we improve an upper bound due to Schmidt on the number of such fields that was previously the best known upper bound for $6 \leq n \leq 94$.

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arXiv2024

Enumerating Galois extensions of number fields

Let $k$ be a number field. We provide an asymptotic formula for the number of Galois extensions of $k$ with absolute discriminant bounded by some $X \geq 1$, as $X\to\infty$. We also provide an asymptotic formula for the closely related count of extensions $K/k$ whose normal closure has discriminant bounded by $X$. The key behind these results is a new upper bound on the number of Galois extensions of $k$ with a given Galois group $G$ and discriminant bounded by $X$; we show the number of such extensions is $O_{[k:\mathbb{Q}],G} (X^{ \frac{4}{\sqrt{|G|}}})$. This improves over the previous best bound $O_{k,G,ε}(X^{\frac{3}{8}+ε})$ due to Ellenberg and Venkatesh. In particular, ours is the first bound for general $G$ with an exponent that decays as $|G| \to \infty$.

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arXiv2024

Faithful Artin induction and the Chebotarev density theorem

Given a finite group G, we prove that the vector space spanned by the faithful irreducible characters of G is generated by the monomial characters in the vector space. As a consequence, we show that in any family of G-extensions of a fixed number field F, almost all are subject to a strong effective version of the Chebotarev density theorem. We use this version of the Chebotarev density theorem to deduce several consequences for class groups in families of number fields.

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arXiv2023

Uniform exponent bounds on the number of primitive extensions of number fields

A folklore conjecture asserts the existence of a constant $c_n > 0$ such that $\#\mathcal{F}_n(X) \sim c_n X$ as $X\to \infty$, where $\mathcal{F}_n(X)$ is the set of degree $n$ extensions $K/\mathbb{Q}$ with discriminant bounded by $X$. This conjecture is known if $n \leq 5$, but even the weaker conjecture that there exists an absolute constant $C\geq 1$ such that $\#\mathcal{F}_n(X) \ll_n X^C$ remains unknown and apparently out of reach. Here, we make progress on this weaker conjecture (which we term the "uniform exponent conjecture") in two ways. First, we reduce the general problem to that of studying relative extensions of number fields whose Galois group is an almost simple group in a natural primitive permutation representation. Second, for almost all such groups, we prove the strongest known upper bound on the number of such extensions. These bounds have the effect of resolving the uniform exponent conjecture for solvable groups, sporadic groups, exceptional groups, and classical groups of bounded rank.

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arXiv2023

Normal distribution of bad reduction

We prove normal distribution laws for primes of bad semistable reduction in families of curves. As a consequence, we deduce that when ordered by height, $100\%$ of curves in these families have, in a precise sense, many such primes.

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arXiv2021

Improved lower bounds for the number of fields with alternating Galois group

Let $n \geq 6$ be an integer. We prove that the number of number fields with Galois group $A_n$ and absolute discriminant at most $X$ is asymptotically at least $X^{1/8 + O(1/n)}$. For $n \geq 8$ this improves upon the previously best known lower bound of $X^{(1 - \frac{2}{n!})/(4n - 4) - ε}$, due to Pierce, Turnage-Butterbaugh, and Wood.

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arXiv2021

The average size of $3$-torsion in class groups of $2$-extensions

We determine the average size of the 3-torsion in class groups of $G$-extensions of a number field when $G$ is any transitive $2$-group containing a transposition, for example $D_4$. It follows from the Cohen--Lenstra--Martinet heuristics that the average size of the $p$-torsion in class groups of $G$-extensions of a number field is conjecturally finite for any $G$ and most $p$ (including $p\nmid|G|$). Previously this conjecture had only been proven in the cases of $G=S_2$ with $p=3$ and $G=S_3$ with $p=2$. We also show that the average $3$-torsion in a certain relative class group for these $G$-extensions is as predicted by Cohen and Martinet, proving new cases of the Cohen--Lenstra--Martinet heuristics. Our new method also works for many other permutation groups $G$ that are not $2$-groups.

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arXiv2021

Quantitative Hilbert irreducibility and almost prime values of polynomial discriminants

We study two polynomial counting questions in arithmetic statistics via a combination of Fourier analytic and arithmetic methods. First, we obtain new quantitative forms of Hilbert's Irreducibility Theorem for degree $n$ polynomials $f$ with $\mathrm{Gal}(f) \subseteq A_n$. We study this both for monic polynomials and non-monic polynomials. Second, we study lower bounds on the number of degree $n$ monic polynomials with almost prime discriminants, as well as the closely related problem of lower bounds on the number of degree $n$ number fields with almost prime discriminants.

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arXiv2021

An approximate form of Artin's holomorphy conjecture and non-vanishing of Artin $L$-functions

Let $k$ be a number field and $G$ be a finite group. Let $\mathfrak{F}_{k}^{G}(Q)$ be the family of number fields $K$ with absolute discriminant $D_K$ at most $Q$ such that $K/k$ is normal with Galois group isomorphic to $G$. If $G$ is the symmetric group $S_n$ or any transitive group of prime degree, then we unconditionally prove that for all $K\in\mathfrak{F}_k^G(Q)$ with at most $O_ε(Q^ε)$ exceptions, the $L$-functions associated to the faithful Artin representations of $\mathrm{Gal}(K/k)$ have a region of holomorphy and non-vanishing commensurate with predictions by the Artin conjecture and the generalized Riemann hypothesis. This result is a special case of a more general theorem. As applications, we prove that: 1) there exist infinitely many degree $n$ $S_n$-fields over $\mathbb{Q}$ whose class group is as large as the Artin conjecture and GRH imply, settling a question of Duke; 2) for a prime $p$, the periodic torus orbits attached to the ideal classes of almost all totally real degree $p$ fields $F$ over $\mathbb{Q}$ equidistribute on $\mathrm{PGL}_p(\mathbb{Z})\backslash\mathrm{PGL}_p(\mathbb{R})$ with respect to Haar measure; 3) for each $\ell\geq 2$, the $\ell$-torsion subgroups of the ideal class groups of almost all degree $p$ fields over $k$ (resp. almost all degree $n$ $S_n$-fields over $k$) are as small as GRH implies; and 4) an effective variant of the Chebotarev density theorem holds for almost all fields in such families.

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arXiv2021

Asymptotic identities for additive convolutions of sums of divisors

In a 1916 paper, Ramanujan studied the additive convolution $S_{a, b}(n)$ of sum-of-divisors functions $σ_a(n)$ and $σ_b(n)$, and proved an asymptotic formula for it when $a$ and $b$ are positive odd integers. He also conjectured that his asymptotic formula should hold for all positive real $a$ and $b$. Ramanujan's conjecture was subsequently proved by Ingham, and then by Halberstam with a power saving error term. In this paper, we give a new proof of Ramanujan's conjecture that obtains lower order terms in the asymptotics for most ranges of the parameters. We also describe a connection to a counting problem in geometric topology that was studied in the second author's thesis and which served as our initial motivation in studying this sum.

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