Integral simplicial volume is a homotopy invariant of oriented closed connected manifolds, defined as the minimal weighted number of singular simplices needed to represent the fundamental class with integral coefficients. We show that odd-dimensional spheres are the only manifolds with integral simplicial volume equal to 1. Consequently, we obtain an elementary proof that, in general, the integral simplicial volume of (triangulated) manifolds is not computable.

We give an explicit formula for the logarithmic potential of the asymptotic zero-counting measure of the sequence {(dn/dzn)(R(z)expT(z))}∞n=1. Here, R(z) is a rational function with at least two poles, all of which are distinct, and T(z) is a polynomial. This is an extension of a recent measure-theoretic refinement of Pólya’s Shire theorem for rational functions.

We prove several rigidity theorems for elliptic genera associated to Toeplitz operators on odd dimensional spin manifolds. We also prove an equivariant odd index theorem for Dirac operators with involution parity and the Atiyah-Hirzebruch vanishing theorems for odd dimensional spin manifolds.

Let Q be an acyclic quiver and s be a sequence with elements in the vertex set Q_0. We describe an induced sequence of simple (backward) tilting in the bounded derived category D(Q), starting from the standard heart H_Q = modkQ and ending at another heart H_s in D(Q). Then we show that s is a green mutation sequence if and only if every heart in this simple tilting sequence is greater than or equal to HQ[−1]; it is maximal if and only if H_s = H_Q[−1]. This provides a categorical way to understand green mutations. Further, fix a Coxeter element c in the Coxeter group W_Q of Q, which is admissible with respect to the orientation of Q. We prove that the sequence \tilde{w} induced by a c-sortable word w is a green mutation sequence. As a consequence, we obtain a bijection between c-sortable words and finite torsion classes in H_Q. As byproducts, the interpretations of inversions, descents and cover reflections of a c-sortable word w are given in terms of the combinatorics of green mutations.

We consider two natural problems arising in geometry which are equivalent to the local solvability of specific equations of Monge- Amp`ere type. These two problems are: the local isometric embedding problem for two-dimensional Riemannian manifolds, and the problem of locally prescribed Gaussian curvature for surfaces in R3. We prove a general local existence result for a large class of Monge-Amp`ere equations in the plane, and obtain as corollaries the existence of regular solutions to both problems, in the case that the Gaussian curvature vanishes to arbitrary finite order on a single smooth curve.