arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Sang-hyun Kim.
We introduce the notion of a Magnus marking for a finite generating set of a group and prove a certain expansion property. Using this property, we determine the second and third smallest growth rates of the rank-$d$ free group for $d\ge 2$. We also give a new lower bound for the smallest growth rate of the genus-$g$ surface group for $g\ge 2$, as well as a lower bound for the growth rate associated with a one-relator presentation.
We prove the following ``Torus Trichotomy Theorem'': every finitely generated subgroup of $\pls$ is either virtually free, a central extension of a cocompact Fuchsian group by a finite cyclic group, or a one-ended, non-acylindrically-hyperbolic group containing $\mathbb{Z}^2$. In particular, we obtain the ``free or surface'' alternative for word-hyperbolic groups of PL homeomorphisms of the circle.
Answering a question of Erdős and Graham, we show that the double exponential growth condition $\limsup_{n\to\infty}a_n^{1/ϕ^n}=\infty$ for a strictly increasing sequence of positive integers $\{a_n\}_{n=1}^\infty$ is sufficient for the series $\sum_{n=1}^\infty 1/(a_n a_{n+1})$ to have an irrational sum; here $ϕ$ denotes the golden ratio. We also provide a positive generalization to $\sum_{n=1}^\infty 1/(a_n^{w_0}\cdots a_{n+d-1}^{w_{d-1}})$, and a negative result showing that some of its instances are essentially optimal. The original problem was autonomously solved by the AI agent \emph{Aletheia}, powered by Gemini Deep Think, while the remaining material is largely a product of human-AI interactions.
We report the performance of Aletheia (Feng et al., 2026b), a mathematics research agent powered by Gemini 3 Deep Think, on the inaugural FirstProof challenge. Within the allowed timeframe of the challenge, Aletheia autonomously solved 6 problems (2, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10) out of 10 according to majority expert assessments; we note that experts were not unanimous on Problem 8 (only). For full transparency, we explain our interpretation of FirstProof and disclose details about our experiments as well as our evaluation. Raw prompts and outputs are available at https://github.com/google-deepmind/superhuman/tree/main/aletheia.
Recent advances in foundational models have yielded reasoning systems capable of achieving a gold-medal standard at the International Mathematical Olympiad. The transition from competition-level problem-solving to professional research, however, requires navigating vast literature and constructing long-horizon proofs. In this work, we introduce Aletheia, a math research agent that iteratively generates, verifies, and revises solutions end-to-end in natural language. Specifically, Aletheia is powered by an advanced version of Gemini Deep Think for challenging reasoning problems, a novel inference-time scaling law that extends beyond Olympiad-level problems, and intensive tool use to navigate the complexities of mathematical research. We demonstrate the capability of Aletheia from Olympiad problems to PhD-level exercises and most notably, through several distinct milestones in AI-assisted mathematics research: (a) a research paper (Feng26) generated by AI without any human intervention in calculating certain structure constants in arithmetic geometry called eigenweights; (b) a research paper (LeeSeo26) demonstrating human-AI collaboration in proving bounds on systems of interacting particles called independent sets; and (c) an extensive semi-autonomous evaluation (Feng et al., 2026a) of 700 open problems on Bloom's Erdos Conjectures database, including autonomous solutions to four open questions. In order to help the public better understand the developments pertaining to AI and mathematics, we suggest quantifying standard levels of autonomy and novelty of AI-assisted results, as well as propose a novel concept of human-AI interaction cards for transparency. We conclude with reflections on human-AI collaboration in mathematics and share all prompts as well as model outputs at https://github.com/google-deepmind/superhuman/tree/main/aletheia.
We present a case study in semi-autonomous mathematics discovery, using Gemini to systematically evaluate 700 conjectures labeled 'Open' in Bloom's Erdős Problems database. We employ a hybrid methodology: AI-driven natural language verification to narrow the search space, followed by human expert evaluation to gauge correctness and novelty. We address 13 problems that were marked 'Open' in the database: 5 through seemingly novel autonomous solutions, and 8 through identification of previous solutions in the existing literature. Our findings suggest that the 'Open' status of the problems was through obscurity rather than difficulty. We also identify and discuss issues arising in applying AI to math conjectures at scale, highlighting the difficulty of literature identification and the risk of ''subconscious plagiarism'' by AI. We reflect on the takeaways from AI-assisted efforts on the Erdős Problems.
Let $M$ and $N$ be smooth manifolds, with $M$ closed and connected. If the $C^r$--diffeomorphism group of $M$ is elementarily equivalent to the $C^s$--diffeomorphism group of $N$ for some $r,s\in[1,\infty)\cup\{0,\infty\}$, then $r=s$ and $M$ and $N$ are $C^r$--diffeomorphic. This strengthens a previously known result by Takens and Filipkiewicz, which asserts that for integer regularities, a group isomorphism between diffeomorphism groups of closed manifolds necessarily arises from a diffeomorphism of the underlying manifolds. We prove an analogous result for groups of diffeomorphisms preserving smooth volume forms, in dimension at least two.
We prove that $Γ_0(2^n)$ ($n\ge2$) has a Farey sequence $\{e_i\}$ such that $e_i \le 2^{n-1}$ for all $e_i$. The above upper bound is optimal, and there exists a unique $j$ such that $e_j= 2^{n-1} $. For each $e_i$, there exists a unique $a_i$ such that $\{ a_i/e_i\}\cup \{\infty\}$ is the set of ideal vertices of a fundamental domain of $Γ_0(2^n)$ whose side-pairings give a set of independent generators of $Γ_0(2^n)$.
For every compact, connected manifold $M$, we prove the existence of a sentence $ϕ_M$ in the language of groups such that the homeomorphism group of another compact manifold $N$ satisfies $ϕ_M$ if and only if $N$ is homeomorphic to $M$. We prove the analogous statement for groups of homeomorphisms preserving an Oxtoby--Ulam probability measure.
We prove that every topological action of a countable group on a metrizable space can be realized as a bi-Lipschitz action with respect to some compatible metric. This extends a result due to U. Hamenstädt regarding finitely generated groups, and our proof is based upon her idea. This also gives a simple proof of a theorem due to Deroin, Kleptsyn and Navas regarding one-manifolds. We also establish an analogous result for closed subgroups of locally compact groups.
Let $G$ be a countable group with no finitely generated subgroup of exponential growth. We show that every action of $G$ on a countable set preserving a linear (respectively, circular) order can be realised as the restriction of some action by $C^1$ diffeomorphisms on an interval (respectively, the circle) to an invariant subset. As a consequence, every action of $G$ by homeomorphisms on a compact connected one-manifold can be made $C^1$ upon passing to a semi-conjugate action. The proof is based on a functional characterisation of groups of local subexponential growth.
Let $n$ be a prime or its square. We prove that the congruence subgroup $Γ_0(n)$ admits a free product decomposition into cyclic factors in such a way that the $(2,1)$-component of each cyclic generator is either $n$ or $0$, answering a conjecture of Kulkarni. We can also require that the Frobenius norm of each generator is less than $2n-1$. A crucial observation is that if $P$ denotes the convex hull of the extended Farey sequence of order $\lfloor \sqrt{n} \rfloor$ in the hyperbolic plane $\mathbb{H}^2$, then the projection $π: \mathbb{H}^2\to \mathbb{H}^2/Γ_0(n)$ is injective on the interior of $P$ and each connected component of $π(\mathbb{H}^2)\setminusπ(P)$ is either an order-three cone of area $π/3$ or an ideal triangle. Denoting by $m(Γ_0(n))$ the minimum of the largest denominator in the cusp set of $Q$ where $Q$ ranges over all possible special (fundamental) polygons for $Γ_0(n)$, we establish the inequality $ \lfloor \sqrt{n} \rfloor \le m(Γ_0(n))\le \lfloor \sqrt{4n/3} \rfloor$, and completely characterize the cases in which the bounds are achieved. We also prove analogous results when $n$ is the multiplication of two sufficiently close odd primes.
We show that if $G_1$ and $G_2$ are non-solvable groups, then no $C^{1,τ}$ action of $(G_1\times G_2)*\mathbb{Z}$ on $S^1$ is faithful for $τ>0$. As a corollary, if $S$ is an orientable surface of complexity at least three then the critical regularity of an arbitrary finite index subgroup of the mapping class group $\mathrm{Mod}(S)$ with respect to the circle is at most one, thus strengthening a result of the first two authors with Baik.
In this monograph, we give an account of the relationship between the algebraic structure of finitely generated and countable groups and the regularity with which they act on manifolds. We concentrate on the case of one--dimensional manifolds, culminating with a uniform construction of finitely generated groups acting with prescribed regularity on the compact interval and on the circle. We develop the theory of dynamical obstructions to smoothness, beginning with classical results of Denjoy, to more recent results of Kopell, and to modern results such as the $abt$--Lemma. We give a classification of the right-angled Artin groups that have finite critical regularity and discuss their exact critical regularities in many cases, and we compute the virtual critical regularity of most mapping class groups of orientable surfaces.
We address the problem of computing the critical regularity of groups of homeomorphisms of the interval. Our main result is that if $H$ and $K$ are two non-solvable groups then a faithful $C^{1,τ}$ action of $H\times K$ on a compact interval $I$ is {\em not overlapping} for all $τ>0$, which by definition means that there must be non-trivial $h\in H$ and $k\in K$ with disjoint support. As a corollary we prove that the right-angled Artin group $(F_2\times F_2)*\mathbb{Z}$ has critical regularity one, which is to say that it admits a faithful $C^1$ action on $I$, but no faithful $C^{1,τ}$ action. This is the first explicit example of a group of exponential growth which is without nonabelian subexponential growth subgroups, whose critical regularity is finite, achieved, and known exactly. Another corollary we get is that Thompson's group $F$ does not admit a faithful $C^1$ overlapping action on $I$, so that $F*\mathbb{Z}$ is a new example of a locally indicable group admitting no faithful $C^1$--action on $I$.
Let $Δ$ be a hyperbolic triangle with a fixed area $φ$. We prove that for all but countably many $φ$, generic choices of $Δ$ have the property that the group generated by the $π$--rotations about the midpoints of the sides of the triangle admits no nontrivial relations. By contrast, we show for all $φ\in(0,π)\setminus\mathbb{Q}π$, a dense set of triangles does afford nontrivial relations, which in the generic case map to hyperbolic translations. To establish this fact, we study the deformation space $\mathfrak{C}_θ$ of singular hyperbolic metrics on a torus with a single cone point of angle $θ=2(π-φ)$, and answer an analogous question for the holonomy map $ρ_ξ$ of such a hyperbolic structure $ξ$. In an appendix by X.~Gao, concrete examples of $θ$ and $ξ\in\mathfrak{C}_θ$ are given where the image of each $ρ_ξ$ is finitely presented, non-free and torsion-free; in fact, those images will be isomorphic to the fundamental groups of closed hyperbolic 3--manifolds.
We study the regularity of exceptional actions of groups by $C^{1,α}$ diffeomorphisms on the circle, i.e. ones which admit exceptional minimal sets, and whose elements have first derivatives that are continuous with concave modulus of continuity $α$. Let $G$ be a finitely generated group admitting a $C^{1,α}$ action $ρ$ with a free orbit on the circle, and such that the logarithms of derivatives of group elements are uniformly bounded at some point of the circle. We prove that if $G$ has spherical growth bounded by $c n^{d-1}$ and if the function $1/α^d$ is integrable near zero, then under some mild technical assumptions on $α$, there is a sequence of exceptional $C^{1,α}$ actions of $G$ which converge to $ρ$ in the $C^1$ topology. As a consequence for a single diffeomorphism, we obtain that if the function $1/α$ is integrable near zero, then there exists a $C^{1,α}$ exceptional diffeomorphism of the circle. This corollary accounts for all previously known moduli of continuity for derivatives of exceptional diffeomorphisms. We also obtain a partial converse to our main result. For finitely generated free abelian groups, the existence of an exceptional action, together with some natural hypotheses on the derivatives of group elements, puts integrability restrictions on the modulus $α$. These results are related to a long-standing question of D. McDuff concerning the length spectrum of exceptional $C^1$ diffeomorphisms of the circle.
Let $q\in\mathbb{C}$, let \[a=\begin{pmatrix} 1&0\\1&1\end{pmatrix},\quad b_q=\begin{pmatrix} 1&q\\0&1\end{pmatrix},\] and let $G_q<\mathrm{SL}_2(\mathbb{C})$ be the group generated by $a$ and $b_q$. In this paper, we study the problem of determining when the group $G_q$ is not free for $|q|<4$ rational. We give a robust computational criterion which allows us to prove that if $q=s/r$ for $|s|\leq 27$ then $G_q$ is non-free, with the possible exception of $s=24$. In this latter case, we prove that the set of denominators $r\in\mathbb{N}$ for which $G_{24/r}$ is non-free has natural density $1$. For a general numerator $s>27$, we prove that the lower density of denominators $r\in \mathbb{N}$ for which $G_{s/r}$ is non-free has a lower bound \[ 1- \left(1-\frac{11}{s}\right) \prod_{n=1}^\infty \left(1-\frac{4}{s^{2^n-1}}\right). \] Finally, we show that for a fixed $s$, there are arbitrarily long sequences of consecutive denominators $r$ such that $G_{s/r}$ is non-free. The proofs of some of the results are computer assisted, and Mathematica code has been provided together with suitable documentation.