Alternating bilinear form Created 2026-10-05 Updated 2026-10-06
A bilinear form is alternating if for every vector . Expanding implies . The converse requires characteristic different from two. In that characteristic a skew-symmetric matrix of odd integer size has zero determinant, since . Thus an alternating form on a finite odd-dimensional vector space is degenerate. A nondegenerate alternating form defines a symplectic vector space.
Invariant form on an irreducible sl2 module Created 2026-10-05 Updated 2026-10-06
In the irreducible sl2 Lie algebra module , use , with . The Lie-invariant bilinear form is nondegenerate: its anti-diagonal is nonzero. Invariance follows from , and . Its transpose equals , so it is a symmetric bilinear form when is an even number, and an alternating bilinear form when is an odd integer. The Weyl complete reducibility theorem gives a nondegenerate invariant form on any finite-dimensional module by taking the orthogonal direct sum of these forms.
Odd prime 2026-10-05
An odd prime is a prime number that is an odd integer. The only even number that is a prime number is , since every other positive even number has as a proper divisor. Thus every prime number greater than is an odd prime. There are infinitely many odd primes, by Euclid's theorem.
Use the classification of finite-dimensional sl2 representations. In the irreducible representation , choose , , so
with vectors beyond the endpoints interpreted as zero. The invariant form on an irreducible sl2 module is
Its anti-diagonal entries are nonzero, so it is nondegenerate. Lie-invariant bilinear form invariance under follows from the sum of the two weights. For , the two potentially nonzero terms are and . For , their coefficients coincide when , and their signs are opposite. These checks prove invariance under the generators of the sl2 Lie algebra.
Interchanging multiplies the form by , giving
Equivalently it is a symmetric bilinear form in odd integer dimension and an alternating bilinear form in even number dimension. The Weyl complete reducibility theorem expresses any finite-dimensional representation as a direct sum of these irreducibles. Give each summand the displayed form and make different summands orthogonal. The resulting form is invariant and nondegenerate. On a reducible representation with both parities, this orthogonal sum need not itself be symmetric or alternating; the dichotomy in the preceding part required irreducibility.
Use the double covering map and its deck involution, the antipodal map . The given sphere cohomology vanishes outside degrees , so only those degrees can survive as invariant classes. The degree-zero action is the identity because the sphere is connected for .
For the top degree, orient as the boundary of the unit ball. A positive tangent basis at means that has positive determinant in . Under the antipodal map every one of these vectors changes sign, so the orientation sign is . Equivalently, the sphere volume form is
Its cohomology class is nonzero by the integral argument and therefore generates the one-dimensional top de Rham cohomology. Thus the top class is invariant precisely when is an odd integer. Applying the quotient result yields
In particular has one copy of in each of degrees zero and one. These are real cohomology groups; integral torsion is not detected by de Rham cohomology.
Use the usual convention that a three-term arithmetic progression must be nonconstant. There is a genuine small-case defect in the printed statement: for , , and , neither conclusion can hold with . We prove the intended Roth density-increment step for every odd integer , including the small values of , rather than silently treating as covered. Counting constant arithmetic progressions would make the first alternative vacuous for every nonempty .
Suppose that has no nonconstant three-term arithmetic progression, and let be its actual density of a finite subset. Thus . Put , , and embed in the cyclic group . A congruence with is an equality over the integers, since . Thus this embedding creates no extra three-term arithmetic progressions. Since is odd, multiplication by two permutes .
Use normalized Fourier analysis on a finite abelian group, with and . For the normalized trilinear arithmetic progression count, character orthogonality gives
Indeed, expanding each function in its inverse Fourier transform, averaging in forces , and averaging in then forces . The Parseval identity in this normalization is .
Let , , and , the balanced indicator function of a finite subset. Then . Only constant arithmetic progressions contribute to , whereas summing over centers counts ordered three-term arithmetic progressions in . Hence
Set . Telescope by changing one factor at a time:
In the Fourier transform formula for each term, bound the Fourier coefficient of by and apply the Cauchy-Schwarz inequality to the other two factors. The permutation preserves the required squared sums. Since and , this gives
If , then , so the difference in the other direction is at least . Consequently Fourier detection of a progression-free subset of an interval gives a nonzero frequency with
To turn this into a density increment, take . The Dirichlet approximation theorem, proved here by placing into equal intervals modulo one, gives such that . Define
For , the inequalities and show that
Use a progression partition with nearly constant linear phase: every residue chain of modulo has at least points. Split each chain into blocks of consecutive chain points, merging any remainder into its last full block. This partitions into arithmetic progressions with and common difference .
On a block with first point , the linear phase satisfies
Let . Freezing the linear phase on each block introduces error at most . Therefore
The block sums total zero. Their positive part consequently totals at least . Since all block lengths total , some block has . Its density of a finite subset is at least .
For the remaining , divide into disjoint consecutive triples and a remainder of at most two points. A three-term-arithmetic progression-free uses at most two points of each triple, so ; the largest ratio occurs at . Any singleton set from then has density of a finite subset one, which is at least . We may therefore use the explicit constants
In the large case the constructed arithmetic progression has length at least ; in the small case its length one does too. Thus these constants prove the intended result for all odd integers .
If the positive odd integer has prime factorization
its Jacobi symbol is
where each factor is a Legendre symbol; by convention . Thus the symbol is zero exactly when .
The quadratic reciprocity law for the Jacobi symbol says that for coprime positive odd integers ,
To prove it, write and . The quadratic reciprocity law for distinct odd primes states
Multiplying this identity over with multiplicities gives the required product of Jacobi symbols. Its sign exponent modulo two is
because multiplication of odd integers adds the quantities modulo two. This proves the law.
For the requested value, two applications of reciprocity give
since , , and is a quadratic nonresidue modulo .
The Dedekind factorization theorem says that, when a rational prime does not divide the index of an order , a factorization
of the minimal polynomial modulo gives
Let with square-free , and let be odd. The resulting splitting of rational primes in a quadratic field is:
Finally suppose and
has norm , with integers
chosen coprime. Then
If an odd ramified, then . Reduction modulo gives
. Since is not a square modulo such a prime, . Dividing the equation's divisibility shows as well (use that square-free has -adic valuation one), contradicting coprimality. Hence no prime ramifies.