This paper applies$K$-homology to solve the index problem for a class of hypoelliptic (but not elliptic) operators on contact manifolds.$K$-homology is the dual theory to$K$-theory. We explicitly calculate the$K$-cycle (i.e., the element in geometric$K$-homology) determined by any hypoelliptic Fredholm operator in the Heisenberg calculus.

We prove that every finite group$G$can be realized as the group of self-homotopy equivalences of infinitely many elliptic spaces$X$. To construct those spaces we introduce a new technique which leads, for example, to the existence of infinitely many inflexible manifolds. Further applications to representation theory will appear in a separate paper.

We prove a general result about the geometry of holomorphic line bundles over Kähler manifolds.

Let $${f \in \mathbb{Z}[x]}$$ , $${\deg f =3}$$ . Assume that$f$does not have repeated roots. Assume as well that, for every prime$q$, $${f(x)\not\equiv 0}$$ mod$q$^{2}has at least one solution in $${(\mathbb{Z}/q^2 \mathbb{Z})^*}$$ . Then, under these two necessary conditions, there are infinitely many primes$p$such that$f$($p$) is square-free.

We prove a rigidity theorem in Poisson geometry around compact Poisson submanifolds, using the Nash–Moser fast convergence method. In the case of one-point submanifolds (fixed points), this implies a stronger version of Conn’s linearization theorem [2], also proving that Conn’s theorem is a manifestation of a rigidity phenomenon; similarly, in the case of arbitrary symplectic leaves, it gives a stronger version of the local normal form theorem [7]. We can also use the rigidity theorem to compute the Poisson moduli space of the sphere in the dual of a compact semisimple Lie algebra [17].

We enhance the efficient congruencing method for estimating Vinogradov’s integral for moments of order 2$s$, with $${1\leqslant s\leqslant k^{2}-1}$$ . In this way, we prove the main conjecture for such even moments when $${1\leqslant s\leqslant \tfrac{1}{4}(k+1)^{2}}$$ , showing that the moments exhibit strongly diagonal behaviour in this range. There are improvements also for larger values of$s$, these finding application to the asymptotic formula in Waring’s problem.

We prove that if$μ$is a$d$-dimensional Ahlfors-David regular measure in $${\mathbb{R}^{d+1}}$$ , then the boundedness of the$d$-dimensional Riesz transform in$L$^{2}($μ$) implies that the non-BAUP David–Semmes cells form a Carleson family. Combined with earlier results of David and Semmes, this yields the uniform rectifiability of$μ$.

We prove the complete monotonicity on $${(0, \infty)^{n}}$$ for suitable inverse powers of the spanning-tree polynomials of graphs and, more generally, of the basis generating polynomials of certain classes of matroids. This generalizes a result of Szegő and answers, among other things, a long-standing question of Lewy and Askey concerning the positivity of Taylor coefficients for certain rational functions. Our proofs are based on two ab-initio methods for proving that $${P^{-\beta}}$$ is completely monotone on a convex cone$C$: the determinantal method and the quadratic-form method. These methods are closely connected with harmonic analysis on Euclidean Jordan algebras (or equivalently on symmetric cones). We furthermore have a variety of constructions that, given such polynomials, can create other ones with the same property: among these are algebraic analogues of the matroid operations of deletion, contraction, direct sum, parallel connection, series connection and 2-sum. The complete monotonicity of $${P^{-\beta}}$$ for some $${\beta > 0}$$ can be viewed as a strong quantitative version of the half-plane property (Hurwitz stability) for$P$, and is also related to the Rayleigh property for matroids.