Let (A, m) be a (commutative, Noetherian) local ring, and a1, …, an a system of parameters for A. Let M be an A-module. We say that M is a big Cohen-Macaulay module with respect to a1, …, an if a1, …, an, is an M-sequence. In this case we call M balanced if any system of parameters for A is an M-sequence.

In this article we exhibit a method complementary to the method presented in [4], that allows us, at least in some important cases, to obtain exact expressions for the orders of ideal classes of cyclotomic fields in terms of properties of the units of the field. We consider only the particular case in which the classes belong to the p-Sylow subgroup (A)p of the ideal class group of a real p-cyclotomic field, but it appears that the results can be generalized.

In this paper we study certain aspects of the problem of analytic continuation of the scattering operator and Eisenstein integral which we introduced in [7, 8, 10], for Kleinian groups Γ with exponent of convergence δ(Γ) ≥ 1. The corresponding problem for groups with δ(Γ) < 1 was examined and solved in [9].

For any associative ring A with 1 and any integer n ≥ 1, let GLn A be the group of all invertible n × n matrices over A and EnA the subgroup generated by all elementary matrices aij, where a ∈ A and 1 ≤ i ≠ j ≤ n. When n = 1, the group GL1A is the multiplicative group of A and the group E1A is trivial.

In this paper A is a commutative noetherian ring, a an ideal of A and the A- modules are given the a-adic topology.

It is a general feeling that completeness is a kind of finiteness condition. We make precise that feeling and, after a result concerning the homology of a complex of complete modules which can be used in place of Nakayama's Lemma, we establish analogies between complete modules and finitely generated ones, with respect to flat dimension, injective dimension, Bass numbers and the Koszul complex. This is particularly clear in the local case, where we have also some partial information on the support of a complete module. With respect to dimension however, the analogy fails, as shown by an example.

In this paper we study the weak versions of the fibrewise separation axioms for locales over a base locale, whose introduction has been made possible by the development, in a previous paper by the author, of the fibrewise notion of closure for sublocales of locales over a base. We establish the implications which hold between these axioms and the traditional separation axioms for locales, and give counter-examples to show that some of these implications are irreversible.

Quantales were first introduced by Mulvey[3] in order to provide a possible setting for constructive foundations for quantum mechanics, as well as a non-commutative analogue of the maximal spectrum of a C*-algebra. Quantales have since been studied by several authors: see [1, 3, 4, 5].

This paper is intended to make explicit some aspects of the interactions which have recently come to light between the theory of classical knots and links, the theory of monoidal categories, Hopf-algebra theory, quantum integrable systems, the theory of exactly solvable models in statistical mechanics, and quantum field theories. The main results herein show an intimate relation between representations of certain monoidal categories arising from the study of new knot invariants or from physical considerations and quantum groups (that is, Hopf algebras). In particular categories of modules and comodules over Hopf algebras would seem to be much more fundamental examples of monoidal categories than might at first be apparent. This fundamental role of Hopf algebras in monoidal categories theory is also manifest in the Tannaka duality theory of Deligne and Mime [8a], although the relationship of that result and the present work is less clear than might be hoped.

Let us denote the group of based homotopy classes of seif-homotopy equivalences of a space X by E(X). We consider E0(X), the subgroup of E(X) consisting of elements which induce the identity map on homology. Dror and Zabrodsky have shown that E0(X) and the subgroup E#(X) consisting of elements inducing the identity on homotopy are both nilpotent groups for finite-dimensional nilpotent spaces, or finite-dimensional spaces respectively ([4], theorem D, theorem A). The theory of localization for nilpotent groups has been developed by several authors (see [8]). The aim of this paper is to prove the following theorem. The corresponding result for E#(X) is obtained in [9], theorem 0·1.

Let F be a closed connected and non-orientable surface smoothly embedded in the 4-sphere S4 with normal Euler number e(F) = 0. We note that if e(F) = 0, then the non-orientable genus n is even (ef. [7]) and the tubular neighbourhood N(F) of F in S4 which is a D2-bundle over F has a trivial I-subbundle. Let τ be a trivial I-subbundle of N(F) and let τ* = F × I ⊂ N(F) be its orthogonal I-subbundle which is twisted. Then is a closed connected genus n – 1 orientable surface smoothly embedded in S4 and doubly covers F. We call this surface a doubled surface of F in S4 (associated with τ). If a trivial I-subbundle τ is given, then we see that the knot type of F* ⊂ S4 is uniquely determined.

We prove that any periodic orbit O of a C1 orientation-preserving embedding f of the 2-disc D2 is linked with a fixed point P in the sense that the corresponding periodic orbits {Φt(O)}t ≥ 0 and {Φt(P)}t ≥ 0 of any torus flow Φt suspending f are linked as knots in S3.

We give some characterizations of the class of character-pure locally compact abelian groups. As an application we supplement a result of Venkataraman characterizing the class of locally compact abelian groups which are topologically pure in their Bohr compactifications. We also study the class of locally compact abelian groups which are pure closed in their Bohr compactifications.

Orthogonality is defined for all elements in a JB-algebra and Topping's results on annihilators in JW-algebras are generalized to the context of JB- and JBW-algebras. A pair (a, b) of elements in a JB-algebra A is said to be orthogonal provided that a2 ∘ b equals zero. It is shown that this relation is symmetric. The annihilator S⊥ of a subset S of A is defined to be the set of elements a in A such that, for all elements s in S, the pair (s, a) is orthogonal. It is shown that the annihilators are closed quadratic ideals and, if A is a JBW-algebra, a subset I of A is a w*-closed quadratic ideal if and only if I coincides with its biannihilator I⊥⊥. Moreover, in a JBW-algebra A the formation of the annihilator of a w*-closed quadratic ideal is an orthocomplementation on the complete lattice of w*-closed quadratic ideals which makes it into a complete orthomodular lattice. Further results establish a connection between ideals, central idempotents and annihilators in JBW-algebras.

Weak precompactness in spaces of vector measures and in the space of Bochner integrable functions is studied. Uniform countable additivity and uniform integrability are characterized in terms of weak precompactness. Through this, a connection between strongly bounded operators and operators having weakly precompact adjoints on abstract continuous function spaces is established. These operators are compared with weakly completely continuous operators.

We consider invariant positive sesquilinear forms on a (partial) *-algebra A without unit. First we investigate the relationship between extendability and representability for such a form ø; in particular we discuss under which conditions the two concepts are equivalent. Then we introduce the notions of weak representability and strict unrepresentability, and we show that every fully invariant positive sesquilinear form on A × A is uniquely decomposed into a weakly representable part and a strictly unrepresentable part.

Throughout the paper, A will denote a unital Banach algebra with centre Z over the complex field ℂ. An element a of A is called quasi-central if, for some K ≥ 1,

The set of elements a satisfying (1) for a particular value of K will be denoted by Q(K) and Q = UK≥1Q(K) will be called the quasi-centre of A.

Let T be an operator on a complex Banach space such that sup {‖Tn‖: n ≥ 0} < ∞; such operators are said to be power-bounded. For such an operator one defines the peripheral spectrum to be the set

where σ(T) denotes the spectrum of T, and T is the unit circle in ℂ. Esterle proved in [3] that limnn→∞ ‖Tn−Tn+1‖ = 0 provided that ‖T‖ ≤ 1 and σ{T} = {1}. Later Katznelson and Tzafriri [6] proved the same result for power-bounded operators such that σΓ(T) = {1}, and in fact they proved a more general result. More precisely, let be an absolutely convergent Taylor series, i.e. , and assume that f is of spectral synthesis for σΓ(T) (in particular f|σΓ(T) ≡ 0). Then limn→∞ ‖f(T) Tn‖ = 0. Katznelson and Tzafriri prove an analogous result, in which T is replaced by a commuting k-tuple (T1, T2, …, Tk) of contractions. In this case they consider functions of the form f(T1, T2, …, Tk), where f is either an absolutely convergent Taylor series if k is odd, or an element of a smaller algebra if k is even. The result of Katznelson and Tzafriri was further extended in the case of a single contraction T by Esterle, Strouse and Zouakia[4], who consider functions f(T) where f is allowed to be in a more general function algebra. For instance, if T acts on a Hilbert space, they allow f to be an element of the disk algebra.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the asymptotic behaviour as r → 1− of the integrals

and f is an analytic function on the unit disk Δ which has non-tangential limits at almost every point on ∂Δ. The paper is divided into three parts. In the first part we consider the case where λ ≠ 1/k, in the second the somewhat more delicate case when λ = 1/k and in the third part we concentrate on some problems related to the case λ = k = 1.

Let O denote the origin of ℝn (where n ≥ 2), let B(X, r) denote the open ball in ℝn of centre X and radius r, and define φn: (0, + ∞) → ℝ by φn(t) = t2-n if n ≥ 3 and φ2(t) = log (1/t). A sequence (Xk) in B(O, 1) is said to converge regularly to O if Xk → O and there is a constant k > 1 such that φn(|Xk+1|) < Kφn(|Xk|) for each k ∈ ℕ. If n ≥ 3, this is clearly equivalent to saying that there is a constant k′ ε (0, 1) such that |Xk+1| > k′|Xk| for each k (cf. [18], p. 149).

Of late the link between operator algebras and certain tensor products has been reiterated [5]. We prove here that the projective and Haagerup tensor products of two infinite-dimensional C*-algebras is not even topologically isomorphic to an algebra of operators on a Hilbert space. Estimates are given for the distance of the tensor product from such an algebra. Nonetheless with respect to a natural multiplication the Haagerup tensor product of two algebras of Hilbert space operators is completely isometrically isomorphic to an algebra of operators on some B(ℋ).