Séminaire Géométrie et théorie des modèles

Originating in the theory of unitary group representations, the notion of spectral gap has played a huge role in many of the deep results in the theory of von Neumann algebras in the last couple of decades. Recently, with my collaborators, we are slowly understanding the model-theoretic significance of spectral gap, in particular its connection with definability. In this talk, I will discuss a few of our recent observations in this direction and speculate on some further possible developments. I will assume no knowledge of von Neumann algebras nor continuous […]

The Chabauty method often allows one to find the rational points on curves of genus at least 2 over the rationals, but has a lot of limitations. On a theoretical level, the Mordell-Weil rank of the Jacobian of the curve has to be strictly smaller than its genus. In practice, even when this condition is satisfied, the relevant Coleman integrals can usually only be computed for hyperelliptic curves. We will report on recent work of ours (with different combinations of collaborators) on extending the method to more general curves. In […]

Zilber conjectured that the complex field equipped with the exponential function is quasiminimal: every definable subset of the complex numbers is countable or co-countable. If true, it would mean that the geometry of solution sets of complex exponential-polynomial equations and their projections is somewhat like algebraic geometry. If false, it is likely that the real field is definable and there may be no reasonable geometric theory of these definable sets.I will report on some progress towards the conjecture, including a proof when the exponential function is replaced by the approximate […]

Let f be a morphism of projective smooth varieties X, Y defined over the rationals. The conjecture by Colliot-Thélène under discussion gives (conjectural) sufficient conditions which imply that for almost all rational prime numbers p, the map f maps the p-adic points X(Q_p) surjectively onto Y(Q_p). The aim of the talk is to present some recent results by Denef, Skorobogatov et al

The dynamical Mordell-Lang conjecture in characteristic zero predicts that if f : X --> X is a map of algebraic varieties over a field K of characteristic zero, Y subset X is a closed subvariety and a in X(K) is a K-rational point on X, then the return set { n in N : f^n(a) in Y(K) } is a finite union of points and arithmetic progressions. For K a field of characteristic p > 0, it is necessary to allow for finite unions with sets of the form { […]

(Joint work with A. Chernikov)Let V subseteq C^3 be a complex variety of dimension 2.The Elekes-Szabo Theorem says that if V contains `too many' points on n x n x n Cartesian products then V has a special form: either V contains a cylinder over a curve or V is related to the graph of the multiplication of an algebraic group.In this talk we generalize the Elekes-Szabo Theorem to relations on strongly minimal sets interpretable in distal structures.

To every group G is associated an associative algebra, namely its group ring kG. Which (geometric) properties are reflected in (algebraic) properties of kG? I will survey some results and conjectures in this area, concentrating on specific examples: growth, amenability, torsion, and filtrations.

About fifteen years ago, Thomas Scanlon and I gave a description of sets that arise as the intersection of a subvariety with a finitely generated subgroup inside a semiabelian variety over a finite field. Inspired by later work of Derksen on the positive characteristic Skolem-Mahler-Lech theorem, which turns out to be a special case, Jason Bell and I have recently recast those results in terms of finite automata. I will report on this work, as well as on the work-in-progress it has engendered on an effective version of the isotrivial […]

A doubling chart on an n-dimensional complex manifold Y is a univalent analytic mapping psi : B_1

In this talk I will describe a joint work (still in progress) with E. Hrushovski and F. Loeser, in which we explain how the integrals I have defined with Chambert-Loir on Berkovich spaces can beseen (in the t-adic case) as limits of usual integrals on complex algebraic varieties

The expressive power of first-order logic in the class of finitely generated fields, as structures in the language of rings, is relatively poorly understood. For instance, Pop asked in 2002 whether elementarily equivalent finitely generated fields are necessarily isomorphic, and this is still not known in the general case. On the other hand, the related situation of finitely generated rings is much better understood by recent work of Aschenbrenner-Khélif-Naziazeno-Scanlon.Building on work of Pop and Poonen, and using geometric results due to Kerz-Saito and Gabber, I shall show that every infinite […]

In several papers, R. Cluckers and D. Miller have built and investigated a class of real functions which contains the subanalytic functions and which is closed under parameterized integration. This class does not allow any oscillatory behavior, nor stability under Fourier transform. On the other hand, the behavior of oscillatory integrals, in connection with singularity theory, has been heavily investigated for decades. In this talk, we explain how to build a class of complex functions, which contains the subanalytic functions and their complex exponentials, and which is closed under parameterized […]