Tag: geometry

devilish symmetries

Published April 2, 2007 by lievenlb

In another post we introduced
Minkowski’s question-mark function, aka the devil’s straircase
and related it to
Conways game of _contorted fractions_. Side remark : over at Good Math, Bad Math Mark Chu-Carroll is running
a mini-series on numbers&games, so far there is a post on surreal numbers,
surreal arithmetic and the connection with
games but
probably this series will go on for some time.

About a year ago I had
an email-exchange with Linas Vepstas because I was
intrigued by one of his online publications linking the fractal
symmetries of the devil’s staircase to the modular group. Unfortunately,
his paper contained some inaccuracies and I’m happy some of my comments
made it into his rewrite The Minkowski question mark, GL(2,Z) and the
modular group. Still, several
mistakes remain so read this paper only modulo his own caveat

XXXX This paper is unfinished. Although this version
corrects a number of serious errors in the previous drafts, it is still
misleading and confusing in many ways. The second half, in particular
must surely contain errors and mis-statements! Caveat emptor! XXXX

For example, on page 15 of the march 24-version he claims
that the third braid group $B_3 \simeq SL_2(\mathbb{Z}) $ which
would make life, mathematics and even physics a lot easier, but
unfortunately is not true. Recall that Artin’s defining relation for the
3-string braid group is $\sigma_1 \sigma_2 \sigma_1 = \sigma_2
\sigma_1 \sigma_2 $ as can be seen because the 3-strings below can
be transformed into each other
But from this
relation it follows that $c=(\sigma_1 \sigma_2 \sigma_1)^2 $ is
a central element in $B_3 $ and it is not difficult to verify
that indeed $B_3/ \langle c \rangle \simeq PSL_2(\mathbb{Z}) $
and $B_3/ \langle c^2 \rangle \simeq SL_2(\mathbb{Z}) $ An easy
way to see that the third braid group and the modular group are quite
different is to look at their one-dimensional representations. Any
group-map $B_3 \rightarrow \mathbb{C}^_ $ is determined by
non-zero complex numbers x and y satisfying $x^2y=y^2x $ so are
parametrized by the torus $\mathbb{C}^_ $ whereas there are only
6 one-dimensional representations of $PSL_2(\mathbb{Z}) = C_2 \ast
C_3 $ (and similarly, there are only 12 one-dimensional
$SL_2(\mathbb{Z}) $-representations). Btw. for those still
interested in noncommutative geometry : $(P)SL_2(\mathbb{Z}) $
are noncommutative manifolds whereas $B_3 $ is definitely
singular, if I ever get to the definitions of all of this… Still,
there is a gem contained in Linas’ paper and here’s my reading of it :
the fractal symmetries of the devil’s staircase form a generating
sub-semigroup $C_2 \ast \mathbb{N} $ of
$GL_2(\mathbb{Z}) $ . To begin, let us recall that the
question-mark function is defined in terms of continued fraction
expressions. So, what group of symmetries may be around the corner?
Well, if $a = \langle a_0;a_1,a_2,\ldots \rangle $ is the
continued fraction of a (see this
post for details) then if we
look at the n-th approximations $\frac{p_n}{q_n} $ (that is, the
rational numbers obtained after breaking off the continued fraction at
step n) it is failrly easy to show that $\begin{bmatrix} p_n &
p_{n-1} \\ q_n & q_{n-1} \end{bmatrix} \in GL_2(\mathbb{Z}) $ and
recall (again) that this group acts on
$\mathbb{P}^1_{\mathbb{C}} $ via Moebius transformations
$\begin{bmatrix} a & b \ c & d \end{bmatrix} $ via $z
\mapsto \frac{az+b}{cz+d} $ One of the symmetries is easy to spot
(reflexion along the 1/2-axis) That is, $?(x-1) = 1 – ?(x) $ Observe that the left-hand
side transformation is given by the Moebius transformation determined by
the matrix $r = \begin{bmatrix} -1 & 1 \\ 0 & 1 \end{bmatrix} \in
GL_2(\mathbb{Z}) $ Other symmetries are harder to see as they are
_fractal symmetries_, that is they are self-symmetries but at different
scales. For example, let us blow-up the ?-function at the interval
[1/3,1/2] and compare it with the function at the interval [1/2,1]
which has the same graph, while halving the function value. More
generally, substituting the ?-function definition using continued
fraction expressions one verifies that $?(\frac{x}{x+1}) =
\frac{1}{2} ?(x) $ and this time the left-hand transformation is
determined by the matrix $g = \begin{bmatrix} 1 & 0 \\ 1 & 1
\end{bmatrix} \in GL_2(\mathbb{Z}) $ We obtain a semi-group $S
= \langle r,g \rangle $ of fractal symmetries which are induced (the
right hand sides of the above expressions) via a 2-dimensional
representation of S $S \rightarrow GL_2(\mathbb{C})~\qquad r
\mapsto \begin{bmatrix} 1 & 0 \\ 1 & -1 \end{bmatrix}~\qquad g \mapsto
\begin{bmatrix} 1 & 0 \\ 0 & \frac{1}{2} \end{bmatrix} $ acting
via left-multiplication on the two-dimensional vectorspace
$\mathbb{C}1+\mathbb{C}x $. We claim that S is the free
semi-group $C_2 \ast \mathbb{N} $. Clearly, $r^2=1 $ and
g is of infinite order, but we have to show that no expression of the
form $rg^{i_1}rg^{i_2}r \ldots rg^{i_l}r $ can be the identity
in S. We will prove this by computing its action on the continued
fraction expression of $a = \langle 0;a_0,a_1,\ldots \rangle $.
It is a pleasant exercise to show that $g. \langle 0;a_1,a_2,\ldots
\rangle = \langle 0;a_1+1,a_2,\ldots \rangle $ whence by induction
$g^n. \langle 0;a_1,a_2,\ldots \rangle = \langle 0;a_1+n,a_2,\ldots
\rangle $ Moreover, the action on r is given by $r. \langle
0;a_1,a_2,\ldots \rangle = \langle 0;1,a_1-1,a_2,\ldots \rangle $ if
$a_1 \not= 1 $ whereas $r. \langle 0;1,a_2,a_3,\ldots
\rangle = \langle 0;a_2+1,a_3,\ldots \rangle $ But then, as a
consequence we have that $g^{n-1}rg . \langle 0;a_1,a_2,\ldots
\rangle = \langle 0;n,a_1,a_2,\ldots \rangle $ and iterating this
procedure gives us finally that an expression $g^{j-1} r g^k r g^l
r \ldots g^z r g = (g^{j-1} r g)(g^{k-1} r g)(g^{l-1} r g) \ldots
(g^{z-1} r g) $ acts on $a = \langle 0;a_1,a_2,\ldots
\rangle $ by sending it to $\langle
0;j,k,l,\ldots,z,a_1,a_2,\ldots \rangle $ whence such an expression
can never act as the identity element, proving that indeed $S \simeq
C_2 \ast \mathbb{N} $. As for the second claim, recall from this
post that
$GL_2(\mathbb{Z}) $ is generated by the matrices $U =
\begin{bmatrix} 0 & -1 \ 1 & 0 \end{bmatrix}~\quad V = \begin{bmatrix}
0 & 1 \ -1 & 1 \end{bmatrix}~\quad R = \begin{bmatrix} 0 & 1 \ 1 & 0
\end{bmatrix} $ and a straightforward verification shows that
$r = RV,~\quad g = VU $ and $R = g^{-1}rg,~\quad
V=g^{-1}rgr,\quad U=rg^{-1}rg^2 $ whence, indeed, the semi-group S
generates the whole of $GL_2(\mathbb{Z}) $!

the Manin-Marcolli cave

Published March 28, 2007 by lievenlb

Yesterday, Yuri Manin and Matilde Marcolli arXived their paper
Modular shadows and the Levy-Mellin infinity-adic transform which is a
follow-up of their previous paper Continued fractions, modular symbols, and non-commutative geometry.
They motivate the title of the recent paper by :

In
[MaMar2](http://www.arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0201036), these and similar
results were put in connection with the so called “holography”
principle in modern theoretical physics. According to this principle,
quantum field theory on a space may be faithfully reflected by an
appropriate theory on the boundary of this space. When this boundary,
rather than the interior, is interpreted as our observable
space‚Äìtime, one can proclaim that the ancient Plato’s cave metaphor
is resuscitated in this sophisticated guise. This metaphor motivated
the title of the present paper.

Here’s a layout of
Plato’s cave

Imagine prisoners, who have been chained since childhood deep inside an
cave: not only are their limbs immobilized by the chains; their heads
are chained as well, so that their gaze is fixed on a wall.
Behind
the prisoners is an enormous fire, and between the fire and the
prisoners is a raised walkway, along which statues of various animals,
plants, and other things are carried by people. The statues cast shadows
on the wall, and the prisoners watch these shadows. When one of the
statue-carriers speaks, an echo against the wall causes the prisoners to
believe that the words come from the shadows.
The prisoners
engage in what appears to us to be a game: naming the shapes as they
come by. This, however, is the only reality that they know, even though
they are seeing merely shadows of images. They are thus conditioned to
judge the quality of one another by their skill in quickly naming the
shapes and dislike those who begin to play poorly.
Suppose a
prisoner is released and compelled to stand up and turn around. At that
moment his eyes will be blinded by the firelight, and the shapes passing
will appear less real than their shadows.

Right, now how
does the Manin-Marcolli cave look? My best guess is : like this
picture, taken from Curt McMullen’s Gallery

Imagine
this as the top view of a spherical cave. M&M are imprisoned in the
cave, their heads chained preventing them from looking up and see the
ceiling (where $PSL_2(\mathbb{Z}) $ (or a cofinite subgroup of
it) is acting on the upper-half plane via
Moebius-transformations ). All they can see is the circular exit of the
cave. They want to understand the complex picture going on over their
heads from the only things they can observe, that is the action of
(subgroups of) the modular group on the cave-exit
$\mathbb{P}^1(\mathbb{R}) $. Now, the part of it consisting
of orbits of cusps
$\mathbb{P}^1(\mathbb{Q}) $ has a nice algebraic geometric
description, but orbits of irrational points cannot be handled by
algebraic geometry as the action of $PSL_2(\mathbb{Z}) $ is
highly non-discrete as illustrated by another picture from McMullen’s
gallery

depicting the ill behaved topology of the action on the bottom real
axis. Still, noncommutative _differential_ geometry is pretty good at
handling such ill behaved quotient spaces and it turns out that as a
noncommutative space, this quotient
$\mathbb{P}^1(\mathbb{R})/PSL_2(\mathbb{Z}) $ is rich enough
to recover many important aspects of the classical theory of modular
curves. Hence, they reverse the usual NCG-picture of interpreting
commutative objects as shadows of noncommutative ones. They study the
_noncommutative shadow_
$\mathbb{P}^1(\mathbb{R})/PSL_2(\mathbb{Z}) $ of a classical
commutative object, the quotient of the action of the modular group (or
a cofinite subgroup of it) on the upper half-plane.

In our
noncommutative geometry course we have already
seen this noncommutative shadow in action (though at a very basic
level). Remember that we first described the group-structure of the
modular group $PSL_2(\mathbb{Z}) = C_2 \ast C_3 $ via the
classical method of groups acting on trees. In particular, we
considered the tree

and
calculated the stabilizers of the end points of its fundamental domain
(the thick circular edge). But
later we were able to give a
much shorter proof (due to Roger Alperin) by looking only at the action
of $PSL_2(\mathbb{Z}) $ on the irrational real numbers (the
noncommutative shadow). Needless to say that the results obtained by
Manin and Marcolli from staring at their noncommutative shadow are a lot
more intriguing…

One Comment

anabelian geometry

Published March 22, 2007 by lievenlb

Last time we saw
that a curve defined over $\overline{\mathbb{Q}} $ gives rise
to a permutation representation of $PSL_2(\mathbb{Z}) $ or one
of its subgroups $\Gamma_0(2) $ (of index 2) or
$\Gamma(2) $ (of index 6). As the corresponding
monodromy group is finite, this representation factors through a normal
subgroup of finite index, so it makes sense to look at the profinite
completion of $SL_2(\mathbb{Z}) $, which is the inverse limit
of finite
groups $\underset{\leftarrow}{lim}~SL_2(\mathbb{Z})/N $
where N ranges over all normalsubgroups of finite index. These
profinte completions are horrible beasts even for easy groups such as
$\mathbb{Z} $. Its profinite completion
is

$\underset{\leftarrow}{lim}~\mathbb{Z}/n\mathbb{Z} =
\prod_p \hat{\mathbb{Z}}_p $

where the right hand side
product of p-adic integers ranges over all prime numbers! The
_absolute Galois group_
$G=Gal(\overline{\mathbb{Q}}/\mathbb{Q}) $ acts on all curves
defined over $\overline{\mathbb{Q}} $ and hence (via the Belyi
maps ans the corresponding monodromy permutation representation) there
is an action of $G $ on the profinite completions of the
carthographic groups.

This is what Grothendieck calls anabelian
algebraic geometry

Returning to the general
case, since finite maps can be interpreted as coverings over
$\overline{\mathbb{Q}} $ of an algebraic curve defined over
the prime field $~\mathbb{Q} $ itself, it follows that the
Galois group $G $ of $\overline{\mathbb{Q}} $ over
$~\mathbb{Q} $ acts on the category of these maps in a
natural way.
For instance, the operation of an automorphism
$~\gamma \in G $ on a spherical map given by the rational
function above is obtained by applying $~\gamma $ to the
coefficients of the polynomials P , Q. Here, then, is that
mysterious group $G $ intervening as a transforming agent on
topologico- combinatorial forms of the most elementary possible
nature, leading us to ask questions like: are such and such oriented
maps ‚conjugate or: exactly which are the conjugates of a given
oriented map? (Visibly, there is only a finite number of these).
I considered some concrete cases (for coverings of low degree) by
various methods, J. Malgoire considered some others ‚ I doubt that
there is a uniform method for solving the problem by computer. My
reflection quickly took a more conceptual path, attempting to
apprehend the nature of this action of G.
One sees immediately
that roughly speaking, this action is expressed by a certain
outer action of G on the profinite com- pactification of the
oriented cartographic group $C_+^2 = \Gamma_0(2) $ , and this
action in its turn is deduced by passage to the quotient of the
canonical outer action of G on the profinite fundamental group
$\hat{\pi}_{0,3} $ of
$(U_{0,3})_{\overline{\mathbb{Q}}} $ where
$U_{0,3} $ denotes the typical curve of genus 0 over the
prime field Q, with three points re- moved.
This is how my
attention was drawn to what I have since termed anabelian
algebraic geometry, whose starting point was exactly a study
(limited for the moment to characteristic zero) of the action of
absolute Galois groups (particularly the groups Gal(K/K),
where K is an extension of finite type of the prime field) on
(profinite) geometric fundamental groups of algebraic varieties
(defined over K), and more particularly (break- ing with a
well-established tradition) fundamental groups which are very far
from abelian groups (and which for this reason I call
anabelian).
Among these groups, and very close to
the group $\hat{\pi}_{0,3} $ , there is the profinite
compactification of the modular group $Sl_2(\mathbb{Z}) $,
whose quotient by its centre ±1 contains the former as congruence
subgroup mod 2, and can also be interpreted as an oriented
cartographic group, namely the one classifying triangulated
oriented maps (i.e. those whose faces are all triangles or
monogons).

and a bit further, on page
250

I would like to conclude this rapid outline
with a few words of commentary on the truly unimaginable richness
of a typical anabelian group such as $SL_2(\mathbb{Z}) $
doubtless the most remarkable discrete infinite group ever
encountered, which appears in a multiplicity of avatars (of which
certain have been briefly touched on in the present report), and which
from the point of view of Galois-Teichmuller theory can be
considered as the fundamental ‚building block‚ of the
Teichmuller tower
The element of the structure of
$Sl_2(\mathbb{Z}) $ which fascinates me above all is of course
the outer action of G on its profinite compactification. By
Bielyi’s theorem, taking the profinite compactifications of subgroups
of finite index of $Sl_2(\mathbb{Z}) $, and the induced
outer action (up to also passing to an open subgroup of G), we
essentially find the fundamental groups of all algebraic curves (not
necessarily compact) defined over number fields K, and the outer
action of $Gal(\overline{K}/K) $ on them at least it is
true that every such fundamental group appears as a quotient of one
of the first groups.
Taking the anabelian yoga
(which remains conjectural) into account, which says that an anabelian
algebraic curve over a number field K (finite extension of Q) is
known up to isomorphism when we know its mixed fundamental group (or
what comes to the same thing, the outer action of
$Gal(\overline{K}/K) $ on its profinite geometric
fundamental group), we can thus say that
all algebraic
curves defined over number fields are contained in the profinite
compactification $\widehat{SL_2(\mathbb{Z})} $ and in the
knowledge of a certain subgroup G of its group of outer
automorphisms!

To study the absolute
Galois group $Gal(\overline{\mathbb{\mathbb{Q}}}/\mathbb{Q}) $ one
investigates its action on dessins denfants. Each dessin will be part of
a finite family of dessins which form one orbit under the Galois action
and one needs to find invarians to see whether two dessins might belong
to the same orbit. Such invariants are called _Galois invariants_ and
quite a few of them are known.

Among these the easiest to compute
are

the valency list of a dessin : that is the valencies of all
vertices of the same type in a dessin
the monodromy group of a dessin : the subgroup of the symmetric group $S_d $ where d is
the number of edges in the dessin generated by the partitions $\tau_0 $
and $\tau_1 $ For example, we have seen
before that the two
Mathieu-dessins

form a Galois orbit. As graphs (remeber we have to devide each
of the edges into two and the midpoints of these halfedges form one type
of vertex, the other type are the black vertices in the graphs) these
are isomorphic, but NOT as dessins as we have to take the embedding of
them on the curve into account. However, for both dessins the valency
lists are (white) : (2,2,2,2,2,2) and (black) :
(3,3,3,1,1,1) and one verifies that both monodromy groups are
isomorphic to the Mathieu simple group $M_{12} $ though they are
not conjugated as subgroups of $S_{12} $.

Recently, new
Galois invariants were obtained from physics. In Children’s drawings
from Seiberg-Witten curves
the authors argue that there is a close connection between Grothendiecks
programme of classifying dessins into Galois orbits and the physics
problem of classifying phases of N=1 gauge theories…

Apart
from curves defined over $\overline{\mathbb{Q}} $ there are
other sources of semi-simple $SL_2(\mathbb{Z}) $
representations. We will just mention two of them and may return to them
in more detail later in the course.

Sporadic simple groups and
their representations There are 26 exceptional finite simple groups
and as all of them are generated by two elements, there are epimorphisms
$\Gamma(2) \rightarrow S $ and hence all their representations
are also semi-simple $\Gamma(2) $-representations. In fact,
looking at the list of ‘standard generators’ of the sporadic
simples

(here the conjugacy classes of the generators follow the
notation of the Atlas project) we see that all but
possibly one are epimorphic images of $\Gamma_0(2) = C_2 \ast
C_{\infty} $ and that at least 12 of then are epimorphic images
of $PSL_2(\mathbb{Z}) = C_2 \ast
C_3 $.

Rational conformal field theories Another
source of $SL_2(\mathbb{Z}) $ representations is given by the
modular data associated to rational conformal field theories.

These
representations also factor through a quotient by a finite index normal
subgroup and are therefore again semi-simple
$SL_2(\mathbb{Z}) $-representations. For a readable
introduction to all of this see chapter 6 \”Modular group
representations throughout the realm\” of the
book Moonshine beyond the monster the bridge connecting algebra, modular forms and physics by Terry
Gannon. In fact, the whole book
is a good read. It introduces a completely new type of scientific text,
that of a neverending survey paper…