We consider the zeros on the boundary @­ of a Neumann eigen- function '¸j of a real analytic plane domain ­. We prove that the number of its boundary zeros is O(¸j) where ¡¢'¸j = ¸2j '¸j . We also prove that the number of boundary critical points of either a Neumann or Dirichlet eigenfunction is O(¸j ). It follows that the number of nodal lines of '¸j (components of the nodal set) which touch the boundary is of order ¸j . This upper bound is of the same order of magnitude as the length of the total nodal line, but is the square root of the Courant bound on the number of nodal components in the interior. More generally, the results are proved for piecewise analytic domains.

We prove a 2-categorical analogue of a classical result of Drinfeld: there is a one-to-one correspondence between connected, simply connected Poisson Lie 2-groups and Lie 2-bialgebras. In fact, we also prove that there is a one-to-one correspondence between connected, simply connected quasi-Poisson 2-groups and quasi-Lie 2-bialgebras. Our approach relies on a “universal lifting theorem” for Lie 2-groups: an isomorphism between the graded Lie algebras of multiplicative polyvector fields on the Lie 2-group on one hand and of polydifferentials on the corresponding Lie 2-algebra on the other hand.

We show that the space of negatively curved metrics of a closed negatively curved Riemannian n-manifold, n  10, is highly nonconnected.

We introduce tropical vector bundles, morphisms and rational sections of these bundles and define the pull-back of a tropical vector bundle and of a rational section along a morphism. Most of the definitions presented here for tropical vector bundles will be contained in$Torchiani, C.$,$Line Bundles on Tropical Varieties$, Diploma thesis, Technische Universität Kaiserslautern, Kaiserslautern,2010, for the case of line bundles. Afterwards we use the bounded rational sections of a tropical vector bundle to define the Chern classes of this bundle and prove some basic properties of Chern classes. Finally we give a complete classification of all vector bundles on an elliptic curve up to isomorphisms.

We introduce singular Ricci flows, which are Ricci flow spacetimes subject to certain asymptotic conditions. These provide a solution to the long-standing problem of finding a good notion of Ricci flow through singularities, in the 3-dimensional case. We prove that Ricci flow with surgery, starting from a fixed initial condition, subconverges to a singular Ricci flow as the surgery parameter tends to zero. We establish a number of geometric and analytical properties of singular Ricci flows.