arXiv research

Expands Bredon's trick for applications in geometry and topology.

Bredon's trick helps extend local properties to global topological spaces.

Compute Bredon homology for a specific type of Artin groups.

In dimension 3 and above, Bredon cohomology gives an acurate purely algebraic description of the minimal dimension of the classifying space for actions of a group with stabilisers in any given family of subgroups. For some Coxeter groups and the family of virtually cyclic subgroups we show that the Bredon cohomological…

A remarkable result of Gersten states that the class of hyperbolic groups of cohomological dimension $2$ is closed under taking finitely presented (or more generally $FP_2$) subgroups. We prove the analogous result for relatively hyperbolic groups of Bredon cohomological dimension $2$ with respect to the family of para…

New cohomology theory shows compact Lie group actions are Morita invariant.

Let $G$ be a group that admits a cocompact classifying space for proper actions $X$. We derive a formula for the Bredon cohomological dimension for proper actions of $G$ in terms of the relative cohomology with compact support of certain pairs of subcomplexes of $X$. We use this formula to compute the Bredon cohomologi…

We generalize a class of groups introduced by Herbert Abels to produce examples of virtually torsion free groups that have Bredon-finiteness length m-1 and classical finiteness length n-1 for all 0 < m <= n. The proof illustrates how Bredon-finiteness properties can be verified using geometric methods and a version of …

Let T be a torus. We present an exact sequence relating the relative equivariant cohomologies of the skeletons of an equivariantly formal T-space. This sequence, which goes back to Atiyah and Bredon, generalizes the so-called Chang-Skjelbred lemma. As coefficients, we allow prime fields and subrings of the rationals, i…

Let G be the fundamental group of a connected, closed, orientable 3-manifold. We explicitly compute its virtually cyclic geometric dimension. Among the tools we use are the prime and JSJ decompositions of M, several push-out type constructions, as well as some Bredon cohomology computations.

Bredon has constructed a 2-dimensional compact cohomology manifold which is not homologically locally connected, with respect to the singular homology. In the present paper we construct infinitely many such examples (which are in addition metrizable spaces) in all remaining dimensions $n \ge 3$.

We study Cohen-Macaulay actions, a class of torus actions on manifolds, possibly without fixed points, which generalizes and has analogous properties as equivariantly formal actions. Their equivariant cohomology algebras are computable in the sense that a Chang-Skjelbred Lemma, and its stronger version, the exactness o…

Let $G$ be a matrix group. Topological $G$-manifolds with Palais-proper action have the $G$-homotopy type of countable $G$-CW complexes (3.2). This generalizes E Elfving's dissertation theorem for locally linear $G$-manifolds (1996). Also we improve the Bredon--Floyd theorem from compact groups $G$ (1960).

Klein bottle embeds into specific lens spaces.

Study of skateboard flips as continuous curves in $SO(3)$ group.

Nash's theorem proved with Günther's trick

Explains Conway's tangle trick and its mathematical origins.

Unified framework for gradient estimation in combinatorial spaces.

We prove all knots can be transformed into a trefoil using special diagrams.

Geometric trick simplifies link homotopy and concordance.

Outlier based Robust Principal Component Analysis (RPCA) requires centering of the non-outliers. We show a "bias trick" that automatically centers these non-outliers. Using this bias trick we obtain the first RPCA algorithm that is optimal with respect to centering.

The Gumbel-max trick and its extensions simplify sampling from categorical distributions in machine learning.

Tricks improve retail product image classification accuracy.

A new gradient estimator for categorical distributions reduces bias and variance.

Establishes necessary and sufficient conditions for smooth triviality of Lie subalgebras and Lie ideals, and proves Moser's trick for foliations.

The Hilbert-Smith conjecture states, for any connected topological manifold $M$, any locally compact subgroup of $\mathrm{Homeo}(M)$ is a Lie group. We generalize basic results of Segal-Kosniowski-tomDieck (2.6), James-Segal (2.12), G Bredon (3.7), Jaworowski-Antonyan et al. (5.5), and E Elfving (7.3). The last is our …

Triple-point Whitney trick classifies ornaments of 3-manifolds.

Alexander trick applied to homology spheres for manifold homeomorphisms.

Embolic volume of compact manifolds is defined in terms of Berger's embolic inequality. In this paper, we show a result of relating embolic volume to the first Betti number. The proof relies on Gromov's covering argument appeared in systolic geometry. Berger called this method covering trick. We exploit and present mor…

We observe that gradients computed via the reparameterization trick are in direct correspondence with solutions of the transport equation in the formalism of optimal transport. We use this perspective to compute (approximate) pathwise gradients for probability distributions not directly amenable to the reparameterizati…

We introduce a family of pairwise stochastic gradient estimators for gradients of expectations, which are related to the log-derivative trick, but involve pairwise interactions between samples. The simplest example of our new estimator, dubbed the fundamental trick estimator, is shown to arise from either a) introducin…

The Gumbel trick is a method to sample from a discrete probability distribution, or to estimate its normalizing partition function. The method relies on repeatedly applying a random perturbation to the distribution in a particular way, each time solving for the most likely configuration. We derive an entire family of r…

An online reinforcement learning algorithm is anytime if it does not need to know in advance the horizon T of the experiment. A well-known technique to obtain an anytime algorithm from any non-anytime algorithm is the "Doubling Trick". In the context of adversarial or stochastic multi-armed bandits, the performance of …

Inference in popular nonparametric Bayesian models typically relies on sampling or other approximations. This paper presents a general methodology for constructing novel tractable nonparametric Bayesian methods by applying the kernel trick to inference in a parametric Bayesian model. For example, Gaussian process regre…

New trick builds hyperbolic manifolds from compact ones, proving some don't virtually fiber.

The reparameterization trick has become one of the most useful tools in the field of variational inference. However, the reparameterization trick is based on the standardization transformation which restricts the scope of application of this method to distributions that have tractable inverse cumulative distribution fu…

Boltzmann machines (BMs) are appealing candidates for powerful priors in variational autoencoders (VAEs), as they are capable of capturing nontrivial and multi-modal distributions over discrete variables. However, non-differentiability of the discrete units prohibits using the reparameterization trick, essential for lo…

Link framings can only change when a 3-manifold has a non-separating sphere.

New method for simplifying knots with specific properties.

New triangulations of octonionic projective plane found with restricted symmetry groups.

We discuss replica analytic continuation using several simple models in order to prove mathematically the validity of replica analysis, which is used in a wide range of fields related to large scale complex systems. While replica analysis consists of two analytical techniques, the replica trick (or replica analytic con…

Paper develops a weighted linearization approach for vector fields.

Tricks adversarial attacks to target specific classes, improving classifier accuracy.

This paper solves a complex differential relation using a novel 'avoidance trick'.

A new network model combines features of DCBM, LSM, and β-model, using a cancellation trick for parameter estimation.

We compute the equivariant complex K-theory ring of a cohomogeneity-one action of a compact Lie group at the level of generators and relations and derive a characterization of K-theoretic equivariant formality for these actions. Less explicit expressions survive for a range of equivariant cohomology theories including …

The reparameterization trick is widely used in variational inference as it yields more accurate estimates of the gradient of the variational objective than alternative approaches such as the score function method. Although there is overwhelming empirical evidence in the literature showing its success, there is relative…

Low-variance gradient estimation is crucial for learning directed graphical models parameterized by neural networks, where the reparameterization trick is widely used for those with continuous variables. While this technique gives low-variance gradient estimates, it has not been directly applicable to discrete variable…