We construct two non-semisimple braided ribbon tensor categories of modules for each singlet vertex operator algebra M(p), p≥2. The first category consists of all finite-length M(p)-modules with atypical composition factors, while the second is the subcategory of modules that induce to local modules for the triplet vertex operator algebra W(p). We show that every irreducible module has a projective cover in the second of these categories, although not in the first, and we compute all fusion products involving atypical irreducible modules and their projective covers.

Three dimensional Einstein gravity with negative cosmological constant -1/\ell^2 deformed by a gravitational Chern-Simons action with coefficient 1/\mu is studied in an asymptotically AdS_3 spacetime. It is argued to violate unitary or positivity for generic \mu due to negative-energy massive gravitons. However at the critical value \mu\ell=1, the massive gravitons disappear and BTZ black holes all have mass and angular momentum related by \ell M=J. The corresponding chiral quantum theory of gravity is conjectured to exist and be dual to a purely right-moving boundary CFT with central charges (c_L,c_R)=(0,3\ell /G).

We determine exact exponential asymptotics of eigenfunctions and of corresponding transfer matrices of the almost Mathieu operators for all frequencies in the localization regime. This uncovers a universal structure in their behavior, governed by the continued fraction expansion of the frequency, explaining some predictions in physics literature. In addition it proves the arithmetic version of the frequency transition conjecture. Finally, it leads to an explicit description of several non-regularity phenomena in the corresponding non-uniformly hyperbolic cocycles, which is also of interest as both the first natural example of some of those phenomena and, more generally, the first non-artificial model where non-regularity can be explicitly studied.

Recently Freed and Hopkins [11] proved that there is no parity anomaly in M-theory on pin+ manifolds in the low-energy field theory approximation, and they also developed an algebraic theory of cubic forms. Earlier Witten [33] proved the anomaly cancellation for spin manifolds by introducing the E8-bundle technique. Motivated by the cubic forms and the anomaly cancellation formulas of Witten-Freed-Hopkins, we give some new cubic forms on spin, spinc, spinω2 and orientable 12- manifolds respectively. We relate them to η-invariants when the manifolds are with boundary, and mod 2 indices on 10 dimensional characteristic submanifolds when the manifolds are spinc or spinω2 . Our method of producing these cubic forms is a combination of (generalized) Witten classes and the character of the basic representation of affine E8.

We prove a sharp inequality for hypersurfaces in the ndimensional Anti-deSitter-Schwarzschild manifold for general $n \ge  3$. This inequality generalizes the classical Minkowski inequality [19] for surfaces in the three dimensional Euclidean space. The proof relies on a new monotonicity formula for inverse mean curvature flow, and uses a geometric inequality established in [4].