For a random walk on a finitely generated group G we obtain a generalization of a classical inequality of Ancona. We deduce as a corollary that the identity map on G extends to a continuous equivariant surjection from the Martin boundary to the Floyd boundary, with preimages of conical points being singletons. This provides new results for Martin compactifications of relatively hyperbolic groups.

Let S be a compact, orientable surface of hyperbolic type and let ψ be a mapping class of S. The present article shows that there exists a finite cover X of S and a lift ψ_X of ψ to X such that the spectral radius of ψ_X, viewed as an automorphism of H_1(X,C), is greater than one if and only if ψ has infinite order and is not a Dehn multitwist. Among the corollaries of this result is the fact that a compact, irreducible 3-manifold with toroidal or empty boundary and positive simplicial volume admits a finite cover for which the multivariable Alexander polynomial is not identically zero and has Mahler measure strictly greater than one; such a manifold also admits a finite cover whose integral first homology has nontrivial torsion. An independent proof of the main result of this paper was given by A. Hadari [Geom. Topol. 24 (2020), no. 4, 1717–1750; MR4173920]. In that paper, the surface was assumed to have at least one boundary component, but stronger control over the required finite covers was obtained.

Let f be a holomorphic automorphism of a compact Kähler manifold. Assume that f admits a unique maximal dynamic degree d_p with only one eigenvalue of maximal modulus. Let μ be its equilibrium measure. In this paper, we prove that μ is exponentially mixing for all d.s.h. test functions.

The classical Morse theory proceeds by considering sublevel sets f^{−1}(−∞,a] of a Morse function f:M→R, where M is a smooth finite-dimensional manifold. In this paper, we study the topology of the level sets f^{−1}(a) and give conditions under which the topology of f^{−1}(a) changes when passing a critical value. We show that for a general class of functions, which includes all exhaustive Morse functions, the topology of a regular level f^{−1}(a) always changes when passing a single critical point, unless the index of the critical point is half the dimension of the manifold M. When f is a natural Hamiltonian on a cotangent bundle, we obtain more precise results in terms of the topology of the base space. (Counter-)examples and applications to celestial mechanics are also discussed.

We give an example of a dominant rational self-map of the projective plane whose dynamical degree is a transcendental number.

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In this paper, we prove that there exist noncollision singularites in a planar four-body problem, thus settles the Painleve conjecture.

We study the general problem of equidistribution of expanding translates of an analytic curve by an algebraic diagonal flow on the homogeneous space of a semisimple algebraic group G. We define two families of algebraic subvarieties of the associated partial flag variety, which give the obstructions to non-divergence and equidistribution. We apply this to prove that for Lebesgue almost every point on an analytic curve in the space of m × n real matrices whose image is not contained in any subvariety coming from these two families, Dirichlet’s theorem on simultaneous Diophantine approximation cannot be improved. The proof combines geometric invariant theory, Ratner’s theorem on measure rigidity for unipotent flows, and linearization technique.

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