We consider a large class of 2D area-preserving diffeomorphisms that are not uniformly hyperbolic but have strong hyperbolicity properties on large regions of their phase spaces. A prime example is the standard map. Lower bounds for Lyapunov exponents of such systems are very hard to estimate, due to the potential switching of “stable” and “unstable” directions. This paper shows that with the addition of (very) small random perturbations, one obtains with relative ease Lyapunov exponents reflecting the geometry of the deterministic maps.

We study groups of automorphisms and birational transformations of quasi-projective varieties. Two methods are combined; the first one is based on p-adic analysis, the second makes use of isoperimetric inequalities and Lang–Weil estimates. For instance, we show that, if SLn(Z) acts faithfully on a complex quasi-projective variety X by birational transformations, then dim(X)⩾n−1 and X is rational if dim(X)=n−1.

We propose a new method for constructing partially hyperbolic diffeomorphisms on closed manifolds. As a demonstration of the method we show that there are simply connected closed manifolds that support partially hyperbolic diffeomorphisms. Laying aside many surgery constructions of 3-dimensional Anosov flows, these are the first new examples of manifolds which admit partially hyperbolic diffeomorphisms in the past forty years.

We will prove Sarnak’s conjecture on Möbius disjointness for continuous interval maps of zero entropy and also for orientation-preserving circle homeomorphisms by reducing these result to a well-known theorem of Davenport from 1937.

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