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Uri Shapira

Publications and source records attributed to Uri Shapira.

35 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

Escape of mass in homogeneous dynamics in positive characteristic

We show that in positive characteristic the homogeneous probability measure supported on a periodic orbit of the diagonal group in the space of 2-lattices, when varied along rays of Hecke trees, may behave in sharp contrast to the zero characteristic analogue; that is, that for a large set of rays the measures fail to converge to the uniform probability measure on the space of 2-lattices. More precisely, we prove that when the ray is rational there is uniform escape of mass, that there are uncountably many rays giving rise to escape of mass, and that there are rays along which the measures accumulate on measures which are not absolutely continuous with respect to the uniform measure on the space of 2-lattices.

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Full escape of mass for the diagonal group

Building on the work of Cassels we prove the existence of infinite families of compact orbits of the diagonal group in the space of lattices which accumulate only on the divergent orbit of the standard lattice. As a consequence, we prove the existence of full escape of mass for sequences of such orbits, sharpening known results about possible partial escape of mass. The topological complexity of the visits of these orbits to a given compact set in the space of lattices is analyzed. Along the way we develop new tools to compute regulators of orders in a number fields.

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Integer points on spheres and their orthogonal grids

The set of primitive vectors on large spheres in the euclidean space of dimension d>2 equidistribute when projected on the unit sphere. We consider here a refinement of this problem concerning the direction of the vector together with the shape of the lattice in its orthogonal complement. Using unipotent dynamics we obtained the desired equidistribution result in dimension d>5 and in dimension d=4,5 under a mild congruence condition on the square of the radius. The case of d=3 is considered in a separate paper.

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Equidistribution of primitive rational points on expanding horospheres

We confirm a conjecture of Jens Marklof regarding the equidistribution of certain sparse collections of points on expanding horospheres. These collections are obtained by intersecting the expanded horosphere with a certain manifold of complementary dimension and turns out to be of arithmetic nature. This equidistribution result is then used along the lines suggested by Marklof to give an analogue of a result of W. Schmidt regarding the distribution of shapes of lattices orthogonal to integer vectors.

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Integer points and their orthogonal lattices

Linnik proved in the late 1950's the equidistribution of integer points on large spheres under a congruence condition. The congruence condition was lifted in 1988 by Duke (building on a break-through by Iwaniec) using completely different techniques. We conjecture that this equidistribution result also extends to the pairs consisting of a vector on the sphere and the shape of the lattice in its orthogonal complement. We use a joining result for higher rank diagonalizable actions to obtain this conjecture under an additional congruence condition.

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On stable lattices and the diagonal group

Inspired by work of McMullen, we show that any orbit for the action of the diagonal group on the space of lattices, accumulates on a stable lattice. We use this to settle a conjecture of Ramharter about Mordell's constant, get new proofs of Minkowski's conjecture in dimensions up to seven, and answer a question of Harder on the volume of stable lattices.

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On the evolution of continued fractions in a fixed quadratic field

We prove that the statistics of the period of the continued fraction expansion of certain sequences of quadratic irrationals from a fixed quadratic field approach the `normal' statistics given by the Gauss-Kuzmin measure. As a by-product, the growth rate of the period is analyzed and, for example, it is shown that for a fixed integer $k$ and a quadratic irrational $\al$, the length of the period of the continued fraction expansion of $k^n\al$ equals $c k^n +o(k^{(1-\frac{1}{16})n})$ for some positive constant $c$. This improves results of Cohn, Lagarias, and Grisel, and settles a conjecture of Hickerson. The results are derived from the main theorem of the paper, which establishes an equidistribution result regarding single periodic geodesics along certain paths in the Hecke graph. The results are effective and give rates of convergence and the main tools are spectral gap (effective decay of matrix coefficients) and dynamical analysis on $S$-arithmetic homogeneous spaces.

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On the Mordell-Gruber spectrum

We investigate the Mordell constant of certain families of lattices, in particular, of lattices arising from totally real fields. We define the almost sure value k_mu of the Mordell constant with respect to certain homogeneous measures on the space of lattices, and establish a strict inequality k_mu < k_nu, when mu,nu are finite and the support of mu is strictly contained in the support of nu. In combination with known results regarding the dynamics of the diagonal group we obtain isolation results as well as information regarding accumulation points of the Mordell-Gruber spectrum, extending previous work of Gruber and Ramharter. One of the main tools we develop is the associated algebra, an algebraic invariant attached to the orbit of a lattice under a block group, which can be used to characterize closed and finite volume orbits.

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Remarks on Euclidean Minima

The Euclidean minimum $M(K)$ of a number field $K$ is an important numerical invariant that indicates whether $K$ is norm-Euclidean. When $K$ is a non-CM field of unit rank 2 or higher, Cerri showed $M(K)$, as the supremum in the Euclidean spectrum $Spec(K)$, is isolated and attained and can be computed in finite time. We extend Cerri's works by applying recent dynamical results of Lindenstrauss and Wang. In particular, the following facts are proved: (1) For any number field $K$ of unit rank 3 or higher, $M(K)$ is isolated and attained and Cerri's algorithm computes $M(K)$ in finite time. (2) If $K$ is a non-CM field of unit rank 2 or higher, then the computational complexity of $M(K)$ is bounded in terms of the degree, discriminant and regulator of $K$.

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Diophantine approximations on fractals

We exploit dynamical properties of diagonal actions to derive results in Diophantine approximations. In particular, we prove that the continued fraction expansion of almost any point on the middle third Cantor set (with respect to the natural measure) contains all finite patterns (hence is well approximable). Similarly, we show that for a variety of fractals in [0,1]^2, possessing some symmetry, almost any point is not Dirichlet improvable (hence is well approximable) and has property C (after Cassels). We then settle by similar methods a conjecture of M. Boshernitzan saying that there are no irrational numbers x in the unit interval such that the continued fraction expansions of {nx mod1 : n is a natural number} are uniformly eventually bounded.

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Grids with dense values

Given a continuous function from Euclidean space to the real line, we analyze (under some natural assumption on the function), the set of values it takes on translates of lattices. Our results are of the flavor: For almost any translate, the set of values is dense in the set of possible values. The results are then applied to a variety of concrete examples, obtaining new information in classical discussions in different areas in mathematics; in particular, Minkowski's conjecture regarding products of inhomogeneous forms and inhomogeneous Diophantine approximations.

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Homogeneous orbit closures and applications

We give new classes of examples of orbits of the diagonal group in the space of unit volume lattices in R^d for d > 2 with nice (homogeneous) orbit closures, as well as examples of orbits with explicitly computable but irregular orbit closures. We give Diophantine applications to the former, for instance we show that if x is the cubic root of 2 then for any y,z in R liminf |n| =0 (as |n| goes to infinity), where denotes the distance of a real number c to the integers.

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A solution to a problem of Cassels and Diophantine properties of cubic numbers

We prove that almost any pair of real numbers a,b, satisfies the following inhomogeneous uniform version of Littlewood's conjecture: (*) forall x,y in R, liminf_{|n|\to\infty} |n| = 0, where <-> denotes the distance from the nearest integer. The existence of even a single pair that satisfies (*), solves a problem of Cassels from the 50's. We then prove that if 1,a,b span a totally real number field, then a,b, satisfy (*). It is further shown that if 1,a,b, are linearly dependent over Q, a,b cannot satisfy (*). The results are then applied to give examples of irregular orbit closures of the diagonal groups of a new type.

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On a generalization of Littlewood's conjecture

We present a class of lattices in R^d (d >= 2) which we call GL-lattices and conjecture that any lattice is such. This conjecture is referred to as GLC. Littlewood's conjecture amounts to saying that Z^2 is GL. We then prove existence of GL lattices by first establishing a dimension bound for the set of possible exceptions. Existence of vectors (GL-vectors) in R^d with special Diophantine properties is proved by similar methods. For dimension d >= 3 we give explicit constructions of GL lattices (and in fact a much stronger property). We also show that GLC is implied by a conjecture of G. A. Margulis concerning bounded orbits of the diagonal group. The unifying theme of the methods is to exploit rigidity results in dynamics and derive results in Diophantine approximations or the geometry of numbers.

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Measure theoretical entropy of covers

In this paper we introduce three notions of measure theoretical entropy of a measurable cover U in a measure theoretical dynamical system. Two of them were already introduced in [R] and the new one is defined only in the ergodic case. We then prove that these three notions coincide, thus answering a question posed in [R] and recover a variational inequality (proved in [GW]) and a proof of the classical variational principle based on a comparison between the entropies of covers and partitions.

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