We study homogenization of G-equation with a ow straining term (or the strain G-equation) in two dimensional periodic cellular ow. The strain G-equation is a highly non-coercive and non-convex level set Hamilton-Jacobi equation. The main objective is to investigate how the ow induced straining (the nonconvex term) in uences front propagation as the ow intensity A increases. Three distinct regimes are identified. When A is below the critical level, homogenization holds and the turbulent ame speed sT (effective Hamiltonian) is well-defined for any periodic ow with small divergence and is enhanced by the cellular ow as $s_T \ge O(A/logA)$. In the second regime where A is slightly above the critical value, homogenization breaks down, and $s_T$ is not well defined along any direction. Solutions become a mixture of fast moving part and a stagnant part. When $A$ is sufficiently large, the whole ame front ceases to propagate forward due to the flow induced straining. In particular, along directions $p = (1; 0)$ and $(0;1)$, $s_T$ is well-defined again with a value of zero (trapping). A partial homogenization result is also proved. If we consider a similar but relatively simpler Hamiltonian, the trapping occurs along all directions. The analysis is based on the two-player dierential game representation of solutions, selection of game strategies and trapping regions, and construction of connecting trajectories.

Blocking is commonly used in randomized experiments to increase efficiency of estimation. A generalization of blocking removes allocations with imbalance in covariate distributions between treated and control units, and then randomizes within the remaining set of allocations with balance. This idea of rerandomization was formalized by Morgan and Rubin (Annals of Statistics, 2012, 40, 1263–1282), who suggested using Mahalanobis distance between treated and control covariate means as the criterion for removing unbalanced allocations. Kallus (Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Series B: Statistical Methodology, 2018, 80, 85–112) proposed reducing the set of balanced allocations to the minimum. Here we discuss the implication of such an ‘optimal’ rerandomization design for inferences to the units in the sample and to the population from which the units in the sample were randomly drawn. We argue that, in general, it is a bad idea to seek the optimal design for an inference because that inference typically only reflects uncertainty from the random sampling of units, which is usually hypothetical, and not the randomization of units to treatment versus control.

Fixing a weakly unobstructed Lagrangian torus in a symplectic manifold X, we define a holomorphic function W known as the Floer potential. We construct a canonical A∞-functor from the Fukaya category of X to the category of matrix factorizations of W. It provides a unified way to construct matrix factorizations from Lagrangian Floer theory. The technique is applied to toric Fano manifolds to transform Lagrangian branes to matrix factorizations. Using the method, we also obtain an explicit expression of the matrix factorization mirror to the real locus of the complex projective space.

We compute a momentum space version of the entanglement spectrum and entanglement entropy of general Young tableau states, and one-point functions on Young tableau states. These physical quantities are used to measure the topology of the dual spacetime geometries in the context of gauge/gravity correspondence. The idea that Young tableau states can be obtained by superposing coherent states is explicitly verified. In this quantum superposition, a topologically distinct geometry is produced by superposing states dual to geometries with a trivial topology. Furthermore we have a refined bound for the overlap between coherent states and the rectangular Young tableau state, by using the techniques of symmetric groups and representations. This bound is exponentially suppressed by the total edge length of the Young tableau. It is also found that the norm squared of the overlaps is bounded above by inverse powers of the exponential of the entanglement entropies. We also compute the overlaps between Young tableau states and other states including squeezed states and multi-mode entangled states which have similarities with those appeared in quantum information theory.

Let n be an integer such that 25≤n≤51. We construct a smooth metric g on Sn with the property that the set of constant scalar curvature metrics in the conformal class of g is not compact.