Seeds of sunflowers are often modelled by $n⟼{\varphi }_{\theta }\left(n\right)=\sqrt{n}{e}^{2i\pi n\theta }$ leading to a roughly uniform repartition with seeds indexed by consecutive integers at angular distance $2\pi \theta$ for $\theta$ the golden ratio. We associate to such a map ${\varphi }_{\theta }$ a geodesic path ${\gamma }_{\theta }:{ℝ}_{\>0}⟶{\mathrm{PSL}}_2\left(\mathbb{Z}\right)\setminus ℍ$ of the modular curve and use it for local descriptions of the image ${\varphi }_{\theta }\left(\mathbb{N}\right)$ of the phyllotactic map ${\varphi }_{\theta }$.

We study some Riemannian metrics on the space of smooth regular curves in the plane, viewed as the orbit space of maps from $S^1$ to the plane modulo the group of diffeomorphisms of $S^1$, acting as reparametrizations. In particular we investigate the metric, for a constant $A>0$, $G_c^A(h,k):={\int }_{S^1}(1+A{\kappa }_c{\left(\theta \right)}^2)\langle h\left(\theta \right),k\left(\theta \right)\rangle \left|c^{\text{'}}\left(\theta \right)\right|d\theta$ where ${\kappa }_c$ is the curvature of the curve $c$ and $h$, $k$ are normal vector fields to $c$. The term $A{\kappa }^2$ is a sort of geometric Tikhonov regularization because, for $A=0$, the geodesic distance between any two distinct curves is 0, while...

We consider the Massera-Schäffer problem for the equation $$-y^{\text{'}}\left(x\right)+q\left(x\right)y\left(x\right)=f\left(x\right),x\in ℝ,$$ where $f\in L_p^{\mathrm{loc}}\left(ℝ\right),$ $p\in [1,\infty )$ and $0\le q\in L_1^{\mathrm{loc}}\left(ℝ\right).$ By a solution of the problem we mean any function $y,$ absolutely continuous and satisfying the above equation almost everywhere in $ℝ.$ Let positive and continuous functions $\mu \left(x\right)$ and $\theta \left(x\right)$ for $x\in ℝ$ be given. Let us introduce the spaces $$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill L_p(ℝ,\mu )& =\left\{f\in L_p^{\mathrm{loc}}{\left(ℝ\right):\parallel f\parallel }_{L_p(ℝ,\mu )}^p={\int }_{-\infty }^{\infty }{\left|\mu \left(x\right)f\left(x\right)\right|}^p\mathrm{d}x<\infty \right\},\\ \hfill L_p(ℝ,\theta )& =\left\{f\in L_p^{\mathrm{loc}}{\left(ℝ\right):\parallel f\parallel }_{L_p(ℝ,\theta )}^p={\int }_{-\infty }^{\infty }{\left|\theta \left(x\right)f\left(x\right)\right|}^p\mathrm{d}x<\infty \right\}.\end{array}$$ We obtain requirements to the functions $\mu$, $\theta$ and $q$ under which (1) for every function $f\in L_p(ℝ,\theta )$ there exists a unique solution $y\in L_p(ℝ,\mu )$ of the above equation; (2) there is an absolute constant...

The notion of $\beta$-normality was introduced and studied by Arhangel’skii, Ludwig in 2001. Recently, almost $\beta$-normal spaces, which is a simultaneous generalization of $\beta$-normal and almost normal spaces, were introduced by Das, Bhat and Tartir. We introduce a new generalization of normality, namely weak $\beta$-normality, in terms of $\theta$-closed sets, which turns out to be a simultaneous generalization of $\beta$-normality and $\theta$-normality. A space $X$ is said to be weakly $\beta$-normal (w$\beta$-normal$)$ if for every...

Let A be a unital C*-algebra. Denote by P the space of selfadjoint projections of A. We study the relationship between P and the spaces of projections $P_a$ determined by the different involutions ${}_a$ induced by positive invertible elements a ∈ A. The maps $\phi :P\to P_a$ sending p to the unique $q\in P_a$ with the same range as p and ${\Omega }_a:P_a\to P_a$ sending q to the unitary part of the polar decomposition of the symmetry 2q-1 are shown to be diffeomorphisms. We characterize the pairs of idempotents q,r ∈ A with ||q-r|| <...

We introduce the cardinal invariant $\theta$-$a{L}^{\text{'}}\left(X\right)$, related to $\theta$-$aL\left(X\right)$, and show that if $X$ is Urysohn, then $\left|X\right|\le 2^{\theta \text{-}a{L}^{\text{'}}\left(X\right)\chi \left(X\right)}$. As $\theta$-$a{L}^{\text{'}}\left(X\right)\le aL\left(X\right)$, this represents an improvement of the Bella-Cammaroto inequality. We also introduce the classes of firmly Urysohn spaces, related to Urysohn spaces, strongly semiregular spaces, related to semiregular spaces, and weakly $H$-closed spaces, related to $H$-closed spaces.

We determine in ${ℝ}^n$ the form of curves $C$ corresponding to strictly monotone functions as well as the components of affine connections $\nabla$ for which any image of $C$ under a compact-free group $\Omega$ of affinities containing the translation group is a geodesic with respect to $\nabla$. Special attention is paid to the case that $\Omega$ contains many dilatations or that $C$ is a curve in ${ℝ}^3$. If $C$ is a curve in ${ℝ}^3$ and $\Omega$ is the translation group then we calculate not only the components of the curvature and the Weyl...

We consider the linear system $|2{\Theta }_0|$ of second order theta functions over the Jacobian $JC$ of a non-hyperelliptic curve $C$. A result by J.Fay says that a divisor $D\in |2{\Theta }_0|$ contains the origin $𝒪\in JC$ with multiplicity $4$ if and only if $D$ contains the surface $C-C=\left\{𝒪\right(p-q)\mid p,q\in C\}\subset JC$. In this paper we generalize Fay’s result and some previous work by R.C.Gunning. More precisely, we describe the relationship between divisors containing $𝒪$ with multiplicity $6$, divisors containing the fourfold $C_2-C_2=\{𝒪(p+q-r-s)\mid p,q,r,s\in C\}$, and divisors singular along $C-C$, using...

The extremal functions  $f_0\left(z\right)$  realizing the maxima of some functionals (e.g. $max|a_3|$, and  $maxarg{f}^{{}^{\text{'}}}\left(z\right)$) within the so-called universal linearly invariant family $U_{\alpha }$ (in the sense of Pommerenke [10]) have such a form that $f_0^{{}^{\text{'}}}\left(z\right)$  looks similar to generating function for Meixner-Pollaczek (MP) polynomials [2], [8]. This fact gives motivation for the definition and study of the generalized Meixner-Pollaczek (GMP) polynomials $P_n^{\lambda }(x;\theta ,\psi )$ of a real variable $x$ as coefficients of $$G^{\lambda }(x;\theta ,\psi ;z)=\frac{1}{{(1-z{e}^{i\theta })}^{\lambda -ix}{(1-z{e}^{i\psi })}^{\lambda +ix}}=\sum _{n=0}^{\infty }{P}_n^{\lambda }(x;\theta ,\psi )z^n,\left|z\right|<1,$$ where the parameters $\lambda$, $\theta$, $\psi$ satisfy the conditions:...

Let $Y$ be a hyperbolic surface and let $\phi$ be a Laplacian eigenfunction having eigenvalue $-1/4-{\tau }^2$ with $\tau >0$. Let $N\left(\phi \right)$ be the set of nodal lines of $\phi$. For a fixed analytic curve $\gamma$ of finite length, we study the number of intersections between $N\left(\phi \right)$ and $\gamma$ in terms of $\tau$. When $Y$ is compact and $\gamma$ a geodesic circle, or when $Y$ has finite volume and $\gamma$ is a closed horocycle, we prove that $\gamma$ is “good” in the sense of [TZ]. As a result, we obtain that the number of intersections between $N\left(\phi \right)$ and $\gamma$ is $O\left(\tau \right)$. This bound is...

The role of the second critical exponent $p=(n+1)/(n-3)$, the Sobolev critical exponent in one dimension less, is investigated for the classical Lane–Emden–Fowler problem $\Delta u+u^p=0$, $u>0$ under zero Dirichlet boundary conditions, in a domain $\Omega$ in ${ℝ}^n$ with bounded, smooth boundary. Given $\Gamma$, a geodesic of the boundary with negative inner normal curvature we find that for $p=(n+1)/(n-3-\epsilon )$, there exists a solution $u_{\epsilon }$ such that $|\nabla u_{\epsilon }{|}^2$ converges weakly to a Dirac measure on $\Gamma$ as $\epsilon \to 0^{+}$, provided that $\Gamma$ is nondegenerate in the sense of second...

In 1984 J. Clunie and T. Sheil-Small proved ([2, Corollary 5.8]) that for any complex-valued and sense-preserving injective harmonic mapping $F$ in the unit disk $𝔻$, if $F\left(𝔻\right)$ is a convex domain, then the inequality $|G\left(z_2\right)-G\left(z_1\right)|<|H\left(z_2\right)-H\left(z_1\right)|$ holds for all distinct points $z_1,z_2\in 𝔻$. Here $H$ and $G$ are holomorphic mappings in $𝔻$ determined by $F=H+\overline{G}$, up to a constant function. We extend this inequality by replacing the unit disk by an arbitrary nonempty domain $\Omega$ in $ℂ$ and improve it provided $F$ is additionally a quasiconformal mapping...