Contributions in Analytic and Algebraic Number Theory
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Springer Proceedings in Mathematics Volume 9 For further volumes: http://www.springer.com/series/8806 Springer Proceedings in Mathematics The book series will feature volumes of selected contributions from workshops and conferences in all areas of current research activity in mathematics. Besides an overall evaluation, at the hands of the publisher, of the interest, scientific quality, and timeliness of each proposal, every individual contribution will be refereed to standards comparable to those of leading mathematics journals. It is hoped that this series will thus propose to the research community well-edited and authoritative reports on newest developments in the most interesting and promising areas of mathematical research today. Valentin Blomer • Preda Mihailescu˘ Editors Contributions in Analytic and Algebraic Number Theory Festschrift for S. J. Patterson 123 Editors Valentin Blomer Preda Mihailescu˘ Mathematisches Institut Mathematisches Institut Universitat¨ Gottingen¨ Universitat¨ Gottingen¨ Bunsenstr. 3-5 Bunsenstr. 3-5 37073 Gottingen,¨ Germany 37073 Gottingen,¨ Germany [email protected] [email protected] ISSN 2190-5614 e-ISSN 2190-5622 ISBN 978-1-4614-1218-2 e-ISBN 978-1-4614-1219-9 DOI 10.1007/978-1-4614-1219-9 Springer New York Dordrecht Heidelberg London Library of Congress Control Number: 2011941120 © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2012 All rights reserved. This work may not be translated or copied in whole or in part without the written permission of the publisher (Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, 233 Spring Street, New York, NY 10013, USA), except for brief excerpts in connection with reviews or scholarly analysis. Use in connection with any form of information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed is forbidden. The use in this publication of trade names, trademarks, service marks, and similar terms, even if they are not identified as such, is not to be taken as an expression of opinion as to whether or not they are subject to proprietary rights. Printed on acid-free paper Springer is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com) Foreword Few mathematicians in Germany in the last 30 years have influenced analytic number theory as much and as deeply as Samuel Patterson. His impressive genealogy is only one of the results of his active mathematical career. Many of the articles in this volume have been presented at the conference “Patterson 60++” at the University of Gottingen¨ in July 2009 on the occasion of his 60th birthday. The conference featured four generations of mathematicians including Patterson’s children and grandchildren as well as his own advisor Prof. Alan F. Beardon who did not miss the opportunity to contribute an enjoyable and lively talk to the many mathematical birthday presents. The articles in this volume reflect Patterson’s manifold interests ranging from classical analytic number theory and exponential sums via automorphic forms on metaplectic groups to measure-theoretic aspects of Fuchsian groups. The combina- tion of measure theory and spectral theory, envisioned by Patterson 30 years ago, is still a most fruitful instance of interdisciplinary mathematics. Besides purely mathematical topics, Samuel Patterson is also well known for his interest in the history of mathematics; a place like Gottingen¨ where he has been teaching and researching for the last 30 years seems to be an appropriate location in this respect. We hope that this book gives a lively image of all of these aspects. We would like to thank the staff of Springer for their cooperation, Michaela Wasmuth for preparing the genealogy, Stefan Baur for excellent and competent typesetting, the numerous referees for their valuable time and expertise, and first and foremost the authors for contributing to this volume. Some colourful and very personal recollections of Samuel Patterson have been compiled on the following pages. Gottingen,¨ Germany Valentin Blomer Summer 2011 Preda Mihailescu˘ vii viii Foreword Encounters with Samuel J. Patterson I came to Gottingen¨ in October 1982, as a first year student in mathematics. Samuel J. Patterson was lecturing on linear algebra. The course was very intense, never loosing a beat in the flow of ideas. His style was passionate, getting in touch with the subject even literally: he would wipe the board with his arm, or his right hand, and when it was over, after ninety minutes of hard work, there was chalk all over the place, including his pants and, sometimes, even his impressive beard. Needless to say, the girls liked it very much. At that time, I did not know much about mathematics and contemporary research, but it was clear to the audience that an enthusiastic scientist was at work here, and it was a significant encouragement to more than just a few to become serious about mathematics. Later, when I became his research student, he had gathered a larger group of younger people in the SFB 170. Those days, his efforts in number theory concentrated on Gauss sums and metaplectic forms, so it seemed. My reading list, however, reflected his heritage as a more classically oriented analytic number theorist, and it would send me off into a different direction. His approach to supervision is to guide the student toward independence as early as is possible. He would push the project as long as guidance is necessary, but get out of the way when there is enough momentum. Also, in the Oberseminar, we got a weekly treat of what he thought we should know, and that was quite a bit. It is not a surprise that his students work in different fields of mathematics. At heart, his love for the theory of numbers and classical mathematics is always present. Now he is soon to retire, whatever this means. Certainly, he will not retire as a mathematician, and we hope that he also continues to encourage the next generation. Jorg¨ Br¨udern I remember June 2001 in Oberwolfach, the conference commemorating the bicen- tennary of Carl Friedrich Gauss’s Disquisitiones Arithmeticae. We had brought together for the occasion mathematicians with historians and philosophers of mathematics. Fairly explicit mathematics dominated the first talks: composition of binary quadratic forms, irreducibility questions in Gauss’s Seventh Section on cyclotomy, nineteenth century reports on the state of the theory of numbers, etc. This changed when it was Patterson’s turn to talk. His subject was Gauss’s determination of the sign of (certain) quadratic Gauss sums, as they are called today. Not that he banned explicit mathematics from his talk – as the lecture went on, he indicated explicitly several proofs of Gauss’s relation, and generalisations thereof. But for some 20 min, he just talked about Gauss’s well-known letter to Olbers of 3 September 1805. This is the letter, where Gauss describes how long he had struggled with the proof – proof of a result, as Patterson duly pointed out, which Gauss had announced in the Disquisitiones on the sole basis of experimental evidence – and how suddenly, with no apparent connection to the ideas he had pursued before – wie der Blitz einschl¨agt – the crucial idea had finally struck him. Foreword ix A specialist of German literature commenting on this letter would be expected to point to the ambient discourse on genius at the time – der Geniebegriff bei Goethe (und anderen). At the Oberwolfach conference, it was precisely the most active research mathematician among all those present at the conference who struck this note. He explained how to read this letter as a self-portrait of Gauss working on his image, on the ethos reflected in it. Beethoven’s Eroica was mentioned as a point of reference for the document, as was Tolstoi’s War and Peace. Unlike the romantic writer, the poet of Roman antiquity was supposed, not only just to capture an immediate impression and conjure up its deeper meaning with astroke–... die V¨oglein schweigen im Walde; warte nur, balde .... –butalsoto prove himself a poeta doctus, able to build global knowledge from geography and natural history into his polished narration. Samuel J. Patterson is for me a rare and challenging example of mathematicus litterarius – a species of which we could use many more, provided they are as capable as he is to use the literary, the humanistic vantage point for detaching themselves from naive identifications with mathematical heroes of the past. Cf. The expanded writeup of the talk: S.J. Patterson, Gauss sums. In: The Shaping of Arithmetic after C.F. Gauss’s Disquisitiones Arithmeticae (C. Goldstein, N. Schappacher, J. Schwermer, eds.), Springer, 2007; pp. 505–528. Norbert Schappacher Es gibt wenige Personen im Leben, die dauerhaft im Gedachtnis¨ haften bleiben. Samuel J. Patterson ist eine davon. Nicht nur als Mensch, sondern mehr noch durch seine Impulse und Ideen, die entscheidende Weichenstellungen geben, und zu gl¨ucklichen und wertvollen Entwicklungen f¨uhren. Er nahm zum Wintersemester 1981 den Ruf auf die Nachfolge von Max Deuring an, die Antrittsvorlesung hielt er am 20. Januar 1982: “Gauß’sche Summen: ein Thema mit Variationen”, ein Gebiet, dass ihn stets fasziniert hat. Es ist bezeichnend, dass er in seiner Antrittsvorlesung Gauß mit den Worten zitiert1:“... n¨amlich die Bestimmung des Wurzelzeichens ist es gerade, was mich immer gequ¨alt hat. Dieser Mangel hat mir alles Ubrige,¨ was ich fand, verleidet; und seit vier Jahren wird selten eine Woche hingegangen sein, wo ich nicht einen oder den anderen vergeblichen Versuch, diesen Knoten zu l¨osen, gemacht h¨atte — besonders lebhaft wieder in der letzten Zeit. Aber alles Br¨uten, alles Suchen ist umsonst gewesen, traurig habe ich jedesmal die Feder weglegen m¨ussen. Endlich vor ein paar Tagen ist’s gelungen – aber nicht meinem m¨uhsamen Suchen, sondern bloß durch die Gnade Gottes m¨ochte ich sagen.